Vindicated!

I've been dreaming for the past 6 months or so that someday I would be writing this post. Many, many times I feared I would not. But I'm thrilled to say today is the day. . .

This story started almost 9 months ago on a lovely fall evening. Jessica and two friends were driving the Chrysler Cirrus home from a Logan High Football game. They were going west on 400 north through a green light, when a guy going east and turning left on 100 west didn't yield to her, and the two cars collided. Happily no one was injured (there was just a lot of screaming on the part of the three girls) and I hurried down after getting that phone call no one wants to get "Mom. . . I've been in a crash. . . but it wasn't my fault!" Our car was towed away, and we learned several days later that it was totaled. We were just hoping to get a fair price on the car, collect the money, and buy another car for Jess and Jake to drive. That was not to be. The guys insurance company came to the conclusion, after speaking to Jessica and the other driver (but not after reading the police report that states that the other driver said it was all his fault, and he was cited for failing to yield) that she was 40% at fault because "she could have stopped, thereby avoiding the collision." Don't you think if she could have stopped, she would have??? Duh. So, instead of paying us $5000 for the value of the car, they were offering $3000. I'm sure they have experience where if they make it difficult enough, people will eventually give up, collect what they can and move on with their lives. They kept encouraging us to just file with our insurance company to collect the other $2000. We could have done that, BUT, we would have had to pay our $500 deductable, plus have our premiums go up by up to $50 a month because of Jessica's prior crash and two speeding tickets. So, we REALLY didn't want to do that. After much time spent talking to the insurance lady back east, and to several attorneys, Mike decided to take it to small claims court. To make a LONG story a little shorter, after countless hours and much frustration, and 4-5 trips to small claims court, we found out several weeks ago that the judge found Jessica 0% at fault, and today WE GOT THE CHECK IN THE MAIL from the guys insurance company for the whole $5000. Woo hoo

It will be so great to pay off the Mazda Protege that we bought in October, and finally have that headache over and done. I'm so grateful to Mike for the time, effort, energy, patience, and smarts it took to stick with this project. The moral to this story is: sometimes good guys do finish first!