Our client Earl was helping his son move when he was hit by a drunk driver in Spokane. The driver that hit Earl was so drunk that the police had to carry her into the patrol car where she urinated on the back seat. Earl was banged up, especially his shoulder, but he thought he would be ok. He treated for several months but did not get better because of nerve damage from the crash, which made his left hand and arm go weak, numb, tingle, and burn. Earl was left in varying levels of constant pain, which made doing anything with his left arm a challenge and made sleeping almost impossible.

Incredibly, the drunk driver had auto insurance, but only the state minimum of $25,000. The 3rd party insurance company, Progressive, offered to pay the policy limits right away. When we turned to Earl's insurance company to submit the UIM claim, State Farm responded with a lowball settlement offer. After we asked State Farm for an explanation, they proceeded to give Earl and us the runaround for several months, continuing to make lowball offers. Eventually State Farm offered $95,000, which was not anywhere close to Earl's damages. The behavior by State Farm did not comply with Washington insurance law. We filed a lawsuit against State Farm on behalf of Earl. After showing State Farm's attorneys that Earl's damages far exceeded their previous lowball offers, State Farm agreed to pay $325,000 for Earl's damages and for their bad faith conduct.