Settlement Frequently Asked Questions

If you have a spouse and there is a place for your spouse to sign, then your spouse must sign the release in order to avoid any deficiencies with your paperwork.  This is especially important if your spouse is listed on your retainer agreement that you signed with our firm and/or is listed on the complaint.  In the event that you divorced from your spouse after your spouse signed the retainer agreement/was listed on the complaint, please contact our office for direction.  If there is not a place for your spouse to sign the documents, then your spouse does not need to sign.

Yes,  if there is a place for a notary to sign it, then it must be signed in the presence of a notary. The easiest way to locate a notary is to go to your bank and inform the teller that you need to have a document notarized.  It is a free service.

We are required to submit the original documents to the settlement administrator. This means that even if we receive your electronic copy prior to a deadline, it will not actually be submitted until we receive the originals. While you can submit them to us electronically, it will not make the process move any faster.

It is extremely important that you provide our firm with information about any bankruptcy proceeding that is ongoing or that you have gone through in the past.  Depending on the facts, it is possible that we will need to work with the bankruptcy trustee to take appropriate steps prior to disbursing any settlement funds to you.  This is necessary under the law, and defense counsel will also require that such steps be taken.  This can extend the timeline for disbursing funds, but it is nonetheless necessary.

Our firm performs an independent investigation to confirm if each claimant has gone through a bankruptcy at any point.  It is therefore in your best interest to provide this information to us as soon as possible, so we can move through this process swiftly with your cooperation.

The gross settlement award is the total settlement value that you are being offered.  The net amount is the amount you will receive after attorney fees, case expenses, court mandated assessments, lien resolution group fees, and any liens that you have been deducted.

Attorney’s Fees:  This amount is a percentage of the gross settlement that is outlined in your Retainer Agreement with our firm.

Case Expenses:  These are the costs/expenses associated with pursuing your specific case.  These include, but are not limited to: fees for obtaining medical records, filing fees with the Court, mailing costs, etc.

Common Benefit Expenses/Court Ordered Assessments:  There is a significant amount of work that is done on behalf of all plaintiffs in this litigation.  For example, when a deposition of a corporate employee is taken, it is taken one time for the benefit of all plaintiffs.  In order to account for the cost of this “common benefit” work, a small percentage is deducted from each and every settlement.  This is ordered by the Court, and applies to each and every case.

Liens:  This is explained in more detail below.  We are obligated to resolve any healthcare liens that exist in your case.  In order to do this we will work with a lien resolution group, who will assess a small fee that becomes an expense ultimately deducted from your settlement.

A lien is a claim on your settlement award from an insurance agency that is requesting payment in connection with services provided.  Medicare and Medicaid are the most common liens, but private insurance companies can also submit a claim.  By law, your insurance is entitled to assert such a lien to seek reimbursement for the amount it paid for medical care related to your claims.  During the settlement process, we are required to confirm if such a lien exists, and if so to finalize it and render payment. In order to do this we will work with a lien resolution company who will audit any lien that is asserted to ensure only related claims are included.  There will also be a negotiation process to reduce any lien amount to the fullest extent possible.

When you receive a Settlement Statement, it may include “TBD” next to the lien amount.  Until the lien resolution group uncovers any liens, we do not know what those amounts are going to be.  They may be $0, but we will not know that until we receive a report from the lien resolution group.   If you are waiting on answers to how much your liens are prior to returning your documents, you are just going to prolong the time you will be waiting to be paid by being slotted into a later payment group.

We encourage you to return the documentation rather than waiting for those amounts to be filled in because the lien resolution group will be working to lower any liens that you have anyway.  This way, you will receive payment as soon as possible.

Similar to other parts of litigation, the settlement process can be very lengthy. When you receive the settlement documents, that means that an offer was made regarding the amount that you would receive; your return of the Release is an acceptance of this offer. But the logistics of disbursing the funds still have to take place, along with several other issues. Additionally, there are certain requirements that must be met prior to funding being released for anyone. Some of these requirements include:

• Meeting the settlement threshold, outlined in your letter.
• Running bankruptcy searches and submitting proper documentation of whether a client has gone through bankruptcy. If they have, this also includes contacting the trustee to determine next steps.
• Processing of the settlement documents by a neutral third party administrator.
• Beginning the lien resolution process by a neutral third party.

All of these things take time and it is important to remember that there is nothing that we can do to speed up the process as the majority of these factors are entirely outside of our control. We are as anxious as you are to receive the funding and deliver it to you, but we have no control over when funding will be released and we wait for updates just as you do.

The settlement threshold refers to the percentage of settlement documents that must be returned and submitted prior to funding being released. This tends to be the most time consuming process of settlement because it involves thousands of people cooperating and we have contact with only a few hundred of them. We are reliant on other firms to follow up with their clients to get the documents back. There is little we can do to speed up the process, other than to urge you and each of our clients to return documents in a timely manner.