Turlock, CA asked in Personal Injury for California

Q: long story short after alm ost 4 years i got a 65 thous law suit for a car accident that was the other driv ers fault.

so the attourney was payed 27 thous i got 9 thous the rest was supose to pay my doctors bills wich still hav ent been payed,a collection office for one of my doctor bills have called mde.i called my other doctors and they two havent been payed so ev erything is goin g to end up in collections can i sue this dirt bag of an attourney

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2 Lawyer Answers
Adam Stoddard
Adam Stoddard
Answered
  • Santa Clara, CA
  • Licensed in California

A: The short answer is, yes you can sue the attorney if you want, but that does not mean you have proper grounds to do so. You can really sue anyone for anything, but winning a case is an entirely different thing.

You need to review your fee agreement that you signed with the attorney. Your relationship with him/her is contractual in nature. I suspect the agreement says that all case costs (copy fees, filing fees, deposition costs, etc.) are to be paid from any settlement first, then the attorney gets his/her fees (likely 33.33% or something like that) from whatever remains, then you get whatever is left over. I doubt the fee agreement says that the attorney will cover any of your medical expenses. Those are typically not part of a fee agreement.

William John Light
William John Light
Answered
  • Santa Ana, CA
  • Licensed in California

A: It depends on what your settlement documents say, and whether the doctors were on a lien. Attorneys are required to protected properly perfected liens. If there were no perfected liens, and your attorney disclosed that it was your responsibility to pay the doctors, a lawsuit doesn't sound like it would be successful.

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