QUESTION
This person is suing after he was trespassing private property?
Asked on Oct 25th, 2013 on General Practice - California
More details to this question:
We received a letter today from an attorney seeking insurance information of my in law's property due to her client claiming injuries and damages sustained in my in-law's property. Yes, this individual sustain injuries but he began the entire chaos by hitting a kid and a woman. Before this ordeal began he was asked to leave and he refused that's when he hit the woman. After the entire chaos and being kicked out from the property he still insisted to re-enter the property however without success. To make matters worse he involved other individuals that seem to be from a gang? How can he sue when he created this incident? What can we do? Should we release information to the attorney he retained?
1 ANSWER
Anybody can sue, but that doesn't mean that he will win. Until a lawsuit is started and you are served with a discovery request for the insurance information, you have no obligation to reveal it. On the other hand, if he does sue, he will be entitled to get that information. If you or your insurance company thought enough of the trespasser's claim to be willing to pay some money to settle the case, you might be wise to give him the insurance information in the hope of reaching a settlement before the matter goes to Court, but since it seems from your question that you are not willing to pay this guy anything, there is probably no point to giving him the information voluntarily.
A much more important issue is that you have to notify your insurance company. Insurance policies require insureds to notify their carrier as soon as they know of a potential claim. If you wait too long to notify the carrier, it may deny coverage on that basis, which could be a big problem if you are sued.
Answered on Oct 25th, 2013 at 12:58 PM