You know, honestly? I don;t really care. I mean, it sucks that I’m being sued and all that, but if I win, I won;t bother countersuing for expenses unless it’s, like, at least half what she was asking for. (for the record, about $400 or so.) I don’t begrudge her suing me exactly. I wish she didn’t, but I don;t want to make this any more of a hassle for her.
For the record, my lawyer’s an old family friend and is perfectly happy to work pro bono on this case.
All the same, I really don’t see any basis for her to sue you. It’s quite common for someone to run into someone in a car and for their car to be totally messed up and the one that got hit to be just fine. She hit you and if you were both breaking the law then theres still no law suit.
Heh, pro bone. Reminds me of a Dutch saying.
The default rule is that a party pays for its own costs. But costs are within the judge’s discretion.
Normally, costs are awarded for really egregious legal practices. E.g. Big corporations mess with smaller parties by drawing out suits for a long time, racking up legal fees and trying to 1) make smaller parties withdraw, and 2) deter future suits. But also, like you said, you can sometimes get costs in frivolous suits. It’s all up to the judge.
I just heard back from the plaintiffs… in the form of a gift basket. It’s nice.
Apparently, you guys were partially right about the ambulance chasing angle. Seems their insurance agency wouldn’t cover the costs to their car unless they tried tosue me for damages. Policy, I guess. Anyway, they tried, and the counter-attempts were so overtwhelmingly against them that they dropped the charges. And sent an apology. Nice people.
So yeah… end of that story. whee.
What do you know, a happy ending!
Phew, that’s a relief, Val 
And that’s sweet that they had enough common sense to actually apologize properly.
Was it filled with Delicious Cake?
That was unexpected. I thought they would just quietly sink back into the shadows, but an actual apology? And a gift basket too!? Heh.
Anyhow, glad you’re on the clear, VE. :victoly:
Well I’m glad they had the decency to apologise at least.
A cynic might interpret this differently. Glad it worked out well for you.
Awesome, a happy ending. Glad to see everything turned out just fine.
(I can’t even quote on this thing. :o )
Anyways it sounds like a winner is you and that’s always a good thing. Plus the cake wasn’t a lie. Right?