Pay Day!

I thought a little update was in order as to the outcome of my attempt to get some restitution from our apartment complex’s management company for my fall in March.  After making numerous phone calls which resulted in zero call backs or messages, I finally emailed the national headquarters for Equity (in Washington D.C. no less) apartments and stated the facts.  I warned them that if I didn’t hear something soon that I would be forced to take the next step which was to bring an attorney into the situation.   Wouldn’t you know…48 hours later, I receive a call from a Mr. Miller down in Atlanta, GA.  Apparently, he is a senior claims adjuster on behalf of Equity’s liability company.  After taking my oral recollection of what happened, getting his notes together as to how much work I missed and the approximate cost of my medical bills, Mr. Miller offered a very comfy settlement offer in lieu of going to court.  He said that his party (very legal sounding) was prepared to offer a maximum cash settlement of $1,500 and would I be prepared to accept it.  Well, to me, $1,500 seemed like more than enough to cover the hospital bills that were beginning to fill up our mail sorter.  Still, I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t settling for too much.  I contacted my insurance company and got a grand total from them for my time in the hospital and found out, that worse case scenario, I’d be looking at $800-900 with my portion being about $500 (with the first admission to the L&D triage, I hadn’t met the deductible, by the time I was in the ER, I had).  So, knowing that I was going to end up pocketing some cash, I took the settlement offer.  I mean, who really has time to miss work and go to court which could drag on for days---in Atlanta, GA?  Not I!  So, as I write this, I’m hoping that Mr. Mailman is depositing a nice flat envelope into my mail box!   It will be so nice to pay those medical bills and maybe, just maybe, go on a little shopping spree.  Babies R Us anyone?  See, sometimes, it pays to pull out the big guns—or at least threaten to!