Alabama’s Top Court Continues to Make it Difficult for Injury Victims to Recover from Insurance Companies

As if the deck of cards is not already rigged against individuals and in favor or big business and the insurance industry, the Alabama Supreme Court has again piled on, making it even more difficult to recover for medical bills, permanent injuries, lost wages and pain and suffering in an opinion released on December 13, 2013. In Ex Parte Safeway Insurance Company of Alabama, on appeal from Jackson County Circuit Court, the Supreme Court held that the badly injured driver (Kimbrough) could not recover under the uninsured motorist provision of his own insurance policy (coverage that he had paid for in advance to protect himself from exactly the type of wreck he suffered).

The facts of this wreck were that a truck swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic of Kimbrough.  The truck struck Kimbrough’s vehicle, ran him off the road and into a creek bed.  The driver of the truck then fled the scene.  Although Kimbrough underwent multiple surgeries totaling around $100,000.00, Safeway Insurance, the uninsured motorist carrier refused to pay on Kimbrough’s claim – because Kimbrough was not able to identify the “phantom driver” and meet his burden of proof that the phantom vehicle was legally responsible for the wreck, a burden made basically impossible to meet since Kimbrough was unable to even walk back to the roadway to attempt to identify the at-fault vehicle.

What will it take for our Legislature and Courts to realize that the pendulum of justice has swung too far to the right and our hard working citizens are bearing the entire burden and reaping no benefit?

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