The Death of Antonin Scalia and the Impact on the Supreme Court (and America as We Know It).

Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a watershed moment in American history. For the first time in my lifetime, which I’m 38 years old, there’s a possibility that we may not have a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It has been a five-to-four vote on every major case since basically the 60's when you had the Warren Court. Ever since then, there have been Republican appointees that have in large part dictated jurisprudence in America for the past 30 or 40 years.

For the first time in American history, we have a sitting democratic president who’s in a position to nominate a Supreme Court justice that could make it a five-to-four liberal majority on the Supreme Court. President Obama has nominated Chief Justice Merrick Garland. He’s the Chief Justice of the US Court of Appeals and he was put in that place in 1997.

At that time, he was confirmed by the senate with a bipartisan vote of 76 to 23. Seven Republicans that currently sit on the senate judiciary committee voted for him at that time in 1997. At least five of those particular senators are still in the senate, and they’re in the awkward political position of (at least if they align with their party) voting against a man that they already said was a very good judge and placed as the Chief Justice of the US Court of Appeals. Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party are at a watershed moment politically, and the reason why is because they’re in a position of a prisoner’s dilemma.

President Obama has put forth a centrist candidate with good Republican ties who was confirmed in 1997 with a bipartisan group of senators voting him onto the bench. The Republicans are in a politically difficult situation in which they would have to eat one of their own potentially and do so because they want to continue the policy of obstructionism with regard to President Obama.

Does the Republican Party want a devil that they do know? As opposed to the devil that they don’t. and that all kind of hinges on the political outcome of the election that we’re going to have at the end of the year. There’s a distinct possibility, depending on the political outcome, that we could have a democratic presidential nominee in the form of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in all likelihood would actually nominate a more liberal justice.

They essentially have three bottles of poison sitting in front of them and they have to choose which one they want to drink. Do they want to go ahead and confirm Merrick Garland with the understanding that he is slightly right of center? Since in 1997, he was confirmed by a the Republicans, or do they want to toe the party line and continue again the policy of obstructionism that they have purported to want to continue.

They want to wait until the election is over and they want the new president to choose the new justice that will become part of the Supreme Court. A byproduct of that is that there are a lot of cases that are going to affect Americans in their day to day lives that are sitting and waiting for a vote on the Supreme Court.

Corporate interests and cases involving abortion that are potentially up for consideration and naturally the Supreme Court cannot consider any of those cases if it doesn’t have its full compliment of judges, because naturally it would end up a four-four tie. So you’re not going to be able to render a judgment in any of those instances. It is a ship that is sitting still on the water with no wind until we get a new Supreme Court justice appointed.

It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens in the next couple of months because, as I said before, the republicans have to decide whether they want a devil that they do, or a devil that they don’t.

If you have any auto accidents or injury issues, or to just render an opinion, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.

What to Do if You’ve Recently Received a DUI and You Need Transportation to Work?

The answer is that you can purchase a moped. The significant thing about a moped is that it does not require that the user actually have a driver’s license in order to be able to use it to go back and forth. That’s just kind of a peculiarity of South Carolina law and it’s a loophole that you can work through in the event that you get a DUI or a second DUI and your license is either suspended indefinitely or pending your temporary hearing.

If you need to get back and forth to work as most people do, you obviously need a paycheck in order to be able to pay for everything, the simple solution is to purchased a moped. You will need the moped while you’re waiting for your temporary hearing to come up immediately following your DUI and in the interim if you have the money and it’s available, you can pursue a provisional license that’s route-restricted. It allows you to go back and forth to work.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t have the money to be able to do that so they go out and they will get a cheap moped and that will allow you to be able to go back and forth to work and to continue earning the amount of money that you need to feed your family and to potentially pay your legal fees as well as any administrative costs associated with your recent DUI.

A moped is the perfect solution to that. I would say as a public service announcement, the top speed of most mopeds is anywhere between 35 and 40 miles an hour. You need to be very mindful of the traffic that’s immediately around you and be smart. Stay in the right lane, the slow lane and maybe even closer to the bike lane and just be mindful of the cars that are around you.

If you have additional questions concerning your DUI, I would strongly encourage you contact The Hartman Firm at 843-300-7600.

What are your rights as a passenger when you’re involved in an auto accident?

The interesting thing about being a passenger in an automobile collision is that ultimately who is at fault for the car wreck really doesn’t matter. The only difference is who you’re making your auto accident claim against. If your friend or relative who’s driving the vehicle did something and they contributed to the collision and they are in fact marked at fault by the police, then what has to happen at that point is instead of you making a claim against the other driver’s insurance company, you make a claim against the auto policy that actually is carried on the car by your friend or your relative.

This may seem like a conflict of interest but in fact it’s not. The whole purpose behind having insurance on your car is for precisely this reason and a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their head around that concept. You’re not actually making a claim against your friend or your relative. You’re making a claim against the auto insurance policy that is actually attached to the car that you’re driving in because under South Carolina law, your liability policy or your own insurance policy is actually portable and comes with you regardless of what car you’re driving in.

It’s attached to the car. So the point is, is if you’re in a car wreck and your driver is in fact at fault, you would make a claim against the auto insurance policy that is on that car that you are riding in. If the opposite were true and the defendant is in fact at fault, then you would make a claim against that auto insurance policy and all of that is the sort of thing that an attorney is going to have to help sort out. The police and their investigation is going to help sort it out as well.

Then eventually the two insurance companies are going to come to some sort of agreement about who is actually at fault. There can be a situation where in fact both drivers are equally at fault for the car wreck. In which case, you would submit your medical records, your bills, your injuries and all that to both insurance companies and they would pay it 50-50. So you would get half of your proceeds from one insurance company and half of the proceeds from the other.

But it makes no matter to you because the whole point is that you will be made whole at the end of the process because all of your medical bills have been paid. You’ve been compensated for your pain and suffering and any potential long term permanent injury that you might have received as a result of the car collision.

So as a passenger in South Carolina, you’re always going to be protected and that’s generally a very good thing.

If you are a passenger or you’ve been involved in a car accident, I would strongly encourage you to pick up the telephone and call The Hartman Law Firm, LLC at 843-300-7600.

What is Underinsured Motorist Coverage Under South Carolina Insurance Law?

Underinsured motorist coverage is exactly what it sounds like. It is an option that you opt for on your auto policy that allows you to add an extra layer of coverage in the event that your medical bills, your pain and suffering and your injury outpaces the actual coverage that the defendant had on his car when the accident occurred.

The significance of this is there is anywhere between 80 to 90% of people out there driving in South Carolina who are riding around with what’s considered state minimum policies. The state minimum for the State of South Carolina is $25,000, therefore the typical defendant who hits you and is at fault is only going to have $25,000 that you can potentially get from his auto insurance company to compensate you for your injuries to pay your medical bills, and any other damages.

A lot of times especially in the context of permanent injuries or injuries that are catastrophic in nature, your medical bills and your injuries are going to far outpace that $25,000. For example, if you’ve got a $25,000 hospital bill because you spent a couple of days in the emergency room at a critical three stage, the emergency room bills get extraordinarily expensive especially when you’re in the ICU.

If you take that and you submit it to the defendant’s insurance company, they’re immediately going to tender that $25,000 because you’ve already got $25,000 in medical bills.

However, then you have $25,000 in medical bills and there’s nothing left over to pay you for your pain and suffering, and there’s nothing left over for your permanent injury that has come as a result of this particular accident.

That is precisely where underinsured motorist coverage comes in. It’s an option that you opt for on your own auto insurance policy. For example, on my car, I have 100/300 and I opted for underinsured motorist coverage for precisely this reason.

In the event that I’m involved in a wreck in which I’m significantly hurt and there’s a permanent injury and the defendant only has $25,000 in coverage, I can go back on my own insurance policy and I can say, “Look, the defendant didn’t have enough money and I’m really hurt and I’ve got $70,000 in medical bills,” and my own insurance company is going to step into the shoes of the defendant and they’re going to say, “OK. Well here, here’s $100,000 to go ahead and cover the rest of your medical bills and to compensate you for your injury and hopefully compensate you for your long term permanent personal injury.”

If you have questions about underinsured motorist coverage, then please contact The Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600

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What is PIP or personal injury protection or MedPay under South Carolina law?

PIP or personal injury protection or MedPay as it’s sometimes called under South Carolina law is an option that pretty much any insurance company is going to allow you to opt for. It’s not necessarily something they’re going to come right out and say it’s available because they don’t necessarily want you to get it.

You would have to pay a little bit higher premium in order to add it to your existing auto policy but the idea behind it is actually really, really good. It’s a no-fault policy that typically comes in denominations of either $1000, $5000 or $10,000 and the idea behind it is that that money, it doesn’t matter whether you were at fault. It doesn’t matter whether the other driver was at fault. You’re going to get that money in the event that you’re in a car wreck and you have existing medical bills that need to be paid.

It also doesn’t matter whether you have health insurance. It’s just a strictly one-time no-fault payment from your insurance company in the event that you’re involved in an auto accident and you’ve got existing medical bills that need to be paid.

This can actually be very beneficial because a lot of times, when you’re making an auto accident claim, there can be anywhere between a four to six-month delay before you actually get your medical bills paid because it takes that long for you to treat, for your lawyer to get all the records together, and for him to finally be able to settle it with the insurance company on a number that everybody is willing to agree to.

So in the meantime, you’ve got four to six months of debtors and creditors who are calling you saying, “Hey, we’ve got this existing EMS bill. We’ve got this emergency room bill that’s still outstanding and we fully and finally expect you to pay for it.”

If you don’t have the means to be able to pay for it, it’s going to affect your overall credit score. PIP is a perfect example of where that can be really a beneficial thing to have on your own auto insurance policy because it’s something that you get immediately from your insurance company and you can take it and pay your medical bills right then as opposed to waiting four to six months that you typically take in pre-litigation context for a car accident case.

The benefit being you have your medical bills paid, so you don’t have to worry about that one. The case actually settles. They’ve already been paid and that affects your bottom line because that means more of the money that you get from the defendant’s insurance company actually come to you in the form of a pain and suffering component.

So in that respect, PIP can be an extraordinarily beneficial thing to have and I would strongly encourage any South Carolina driver to go ahead an add it to their auto insurance policy. It’s maybe $10 or $15 extra a month and it can make a real difference.

If you have questions about PIP or MedPay, then I would strongly encourage you to pick up the telephone and call me at 843-300-7600 or feel free to look me up at The Hartman Law Firm.

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