Do You Need a Lawyer for a Minor Injury?

Plenty of small claims are settled directly with an insurer, without a lawyer, for a fair amount. If your car was dented, you were checked over once, you felt fine within a week, and the other driver’s insurer accepts responsibility, hiring anyone may add nothing.

That is the honest starting position. What follows is the part that is harder to see from the inside: the specific circumstances in Hawaii that change the answer, and why some of them are invisible in the first few weeks.

When Handling It Yourself Is Reasonable

Broadly, when all of these are true at once:

• Fault is not in dispute and nobody has suggested you contributed to the collision
• Your treatment was brief and has finished, and you have returned to normal activity
• You lost little or no income
• The insurer is responsive and its offer is consistent with your actual bills and losses
• You are comfortable that you understand what you would be signing

If that describes your situation, the useful thing this page can offer is not a phone number. It is the point below about deadlines, which applies whether or not anyone is representing you.

The Threshold That Makes “Minor” a Legal Question in Hawaii

Hawaii’s no-fault system does something that surprises people: the size of your medical treatment can determine what kind of claim you have at all, not merely what it is worth.

HRS §431:10C-306(a) abolishes tort liability for the owner, operator or user of an insured motor vehicle for accidental harm from motor vehicle accidents in this State, except in the circumstances in subsection (b). Those circumstances are: death; injury consisting, in whole or in part, of a significant permanent loss of use of a part or function of the body; injury consisting of a permanent and serious disfigurement resulting in subjection of the injured person to mental or emotional suffering; and injury for which the personal injury protection benefits incurred by the person equal or exceed $5,000.

That $5,000 figure is why an injury that feels minor is not always a minor claim. The statute sets out what counts towards it in §431:10C-306(b)(4)(A), and the list is broader than the bills you personally receive. It includes PIP benefits incurred by, paid to or payable to or on behalf of an eligible injured person, including similar benefits under social security, workers’ compensation or public assistance laws; the applicable amounts of any deductible or copayment paid or incurred; and amounts paid by or on behalf of an injured person who is not entitled to PIP benefits, by health insurance or other funds. Where a person receives coverage other than on a fee-for-service basis, the value of the services provided is determined against the fee schedules allowable under the chapter for the purpose of that threshold determination.

Subparagraph (B) works the other way: where a person has optional coverage, benefits received in excess of the maximum basic PIP limits in HRS §431:10C-103.5 are not included in the calculation.

The practical consequence is that a course of physical therapy that nobody thought of as serious can carry a claim across a line that changes its character — and that the calculation is not a matter of adding up the bills in your own drawer.

Running Out of PIP

PIP benefits are subject to an aggregate limit of $10,000 per person under HRS §431:10C-103.5(c). The same subsection provides that an insurer may offer additional coverage in excess of that aggregate limit.

Reaching the limit while still treating is a moment worth getting advice about, because the question of who pays for continuing care from that point is a different question from the one you started with.

When Fault Is Disputed, the Amount Is Already Being Decided

Hawaii applies a modified comparative negligence rule. Under HRS §663-31(a), contributory negligence does not bar recovery so long as the injured person’s negligence was not greater than the negligence of the person, or the aggregate negligence of the persons, against whom recovery is sought — but any damages allowed are diminished in proportion to the negligence attributable to the injured person. Under §663-31(c), where that proportion is greater than the other side’s, the court enters judgment for the defendant.

A percentage assigned early in a conversation with an adjuster is not a formality. If someone has suggested you were partly responsible, the claim is no longer a simple administrative matter, whatever the size of the injury. See what the insurance adjuster’s first call is really for.

Things That Should Change the Answer

Regardless of how small the injury looked at first:

• Symptoms that are getting worse, or that have moved — particularly headaches, numbness, or anything neurological
• A referral to a specialist, an MRI, or a recommendation of an injection or a procedure
• Any suggestion that you were partly at fault
• Missed work beyond a few days, or work you can no longer do the same way
• A government vehicle, a government-maintained road, or a commercial vehicle
• An insurer that has stopped responding, or has denied something without giving a reason
• A settlement document you are being asked to sign that you do not fully understand

On that last one: a settlement resolves the claim. Before signing, it is worth confirming what the document gives up and whether anything about it can be revisited afterwards. That is a short question to ask and an expensive one to skip.

The Deadline Applies to Small Claims Too

Nothing about a claim being modest extends the time to bring it. HRS §657-7 requires actions for the recovery of compensation for damage or injury to persons or property to be instituted within two years after the cause of action accrued, and not after, subject to HRS §657-13. Motor vehicle claims also run under HRS §431:10C-315, which measures the period from the later of several dates rather than one.

A claim that was being handled informally and amicably for eighteen months is still a claim with a deadline. The guide to Hawaii filing deadlines by claim type sets each one out against its statute.

How to Decide

A consultation and a retainer are different things. Asking someone whether your situation has any of the features above is a short conversation, and the answer is sometimes that it does not — which is a useful answer to have before you sign anything.

If you want the underlying framework rather than the decision, the elements of a Hawaii personal injury claim page covers what any claim has to prove, and the Hawaii car accident claims and no-fault rules page covers how collisions in particular are handled.