Hi this is Jim Zadeh it’s of the afternoon of February 11, 2021. Like many of you we have been watching as the details slowly emerge from the accident that occurred this morning on I-35W apparently involving between 75 and 100 vehicles and now I’m hearing numerous fatalities. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those who have passed away and to all of those have been injured in this terrible tragedy. We also want to give kudos out and thanks to the first responders, those especially who got out there while the accident was occurring. I believe even a Medstar ambulance even received minor damage. And while these were unfolding we were having our staff meeting this morning. I have two attorneys who are former insurance company attorneys, one was an adjuster and one was an attorney for an insurance company and I brought a point that I had taught in my law school class on Monday night about how insurance works with respect to multiple vehicles involved in an accident and I made the point and all of my staff said you need to do a short video about it. I don’t want to appear insensitive in any way to the victims and to those that are injured so I’m just going to put out a short informational deal if anybody needs it they can listen. But under the law in the State of Texas minimum insurance policy is $30,000 per person $60,000 per occurrence. When an insurance company is presented with the claim on that insurance policy and there is multiple vehicles the insurance company could choose who they want to pay and when they want to pay and as a practical matter it’s a first come first serve. So for example if its determined in this accident that there were some parties that were at fault and they had minimum insurance policy limits there may be as many as 75 to 100 claims made against that insurance policy and the insurance company only has to pay out a total of $60,000 and its going to be likely a first come first serve bases. And so for those that are out there maybe wondering how quickly people can get compensated for it or how quickly the money will run out, that is just kind of a sad reality and its kind of a first come first serve, The name of the case is Soriano it’s a Texas Supreme court case and it gives the insurance companies that right. So I just wanted to provide a little bit information out there and like my staff was telling me to just to let people know but it’s a very minor point in compared to what happened. I’ve lived and been an attorney in fort worth for the last 32 years its just and we had a tornado and the hail storm back in 95 and 2000 but I think this rivals if not goes above those tragedies and.. its just awful… its just awful.. so hopefully we’ll get some good news and hopefully some people that have been injured will heal and hopefully something will come out of it but right now its just awful. Thanks for your time.
