Christine M. Tigges of Hamilton, Virginia, was covered by United States Automobile Association (“USAA”) for $300,000.00 of personal injury damages under an automobile liability insurance policy. She then also apparently was covered by USAA for car accident under an umbrella insurance policy for an additional $1,000,000.00.
On August 9, 2008, in Loudoun County, Virginia, Ms. Tigges was cited for failing to yield the right of way to Rebecca M. Cooper of Berryville, Virginia, into whom she crashed. That car crash victim suffered multiple serious injuries requiring surgeries and numerous other medical treatments and care continuing through the present and costing more than $213,225.78.
Despite repeated amicable demand by Mr. Waterman for full fair compensation for Ms. Cooper, USAA haughtily tendered only the limits of its first layer of insurance coverage, $300,000.00. Unfairly, that amount is a little more than the victim’s mounting $213,225.78+ medical bills, not full compensation for her car collision pain, suffering, inconvenience, permanency, and other damages; so is unacceptable.
Accordingly, Mr. Waterman is pursuing a personal injury lawsuit against USAA’s offending insured motorist in Cooper v. Tigges, No. CL-63034 in Circuit Court for Loudoun County, Virginia. Jury trial of that car accident action likely will be in 2012.
The victim also is covered for personal injuries sustained in the car wreck by at least another $250,000.00 of underinsured motorist insurance (“UIM”) with her own insurer, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (“State Farm”), which by Virginia law is stacked on top of the offending driver’s $1,300,000.00 of combined automobile liability/umbrella insurance. But State Farm has not tendered any of its UIM coverage, so necessarily has been named and served as an adverse party in Cooper v. Tigges too.
