Good day.
I would like to seek for your legal advice regarding my husband's case. He is being charge with reckless imprudence resulting to serious physical injuries and ra 4136 driving under influence of liqour.
April 9, 2018 around 5am while driving he had bumped an old lady. Resulting on the impact the old lady suffered internal bleeding on her head, swollen lungs and broken leg. The lady had been rushed to the hospital while my husband had been detained by the police.
We tried to talk to the lady's immediate family into settlement but they refused. The case has been filed few days after the incident while my husband has been detained for 5 days since applying for bail really took all the hassle working out. Our total bail amounts to 50k total for the 2 cases combined, 44k for reckless imprudence and 6k for RA 4136.
Upon checking with the hospital the lady is now out of critical danger. Internal bleeding on the head has been treated thru medication, she recently underwent diaphragm surgery as her intestines were pushed thru her diaphragm to the lungs that's why initial findings thru various test concludes to a swollen lungs but eventually diagnosed otherwise. She is now on recovery from her diaphragm surgery. After recovery she will then be tranferred to orthopedic dept to check her leg. As of the moment left leg is in soft cast as the doctor dont suggest for future metal implant.
On the arraignment happened last week, the immediate family of the complainant (complainant cannot go to the hearing yet as she was still confined to the hospital) agreed to settle with us in a condition that we have to pay them 500k.
500k is really a big amount of money and we think that the amount is beyond reasonable.
The lady is a newspaper vendor and is confined to a government hospital. The hospital said that to this date running bill amounts to 64k but since the victim is a senior she might not pay for the hospital bill. So we asked for the immediate family to provide us with the medicine reciepts bought outside the hospital and the hospital running bill. But as of the moment no copy of recipts or hospital docs has been given to us.
Given the situation, since we know for a fact that we are civilly liable to the lady we want to settle all hospital bills and medication and give also an extra for the damages like:
Estimated daily income @P500x 150 days (estimated recovery period from date of incident). P75,000.00
Estimated medicines boughT (receipts are being requested from the complainant but have not been given yet as of the moment) P15,000.00
Estimated post hospital/recovery Up. P20,000.00
Additional Danyos P26,000.00
Total proposed settlement: P200,000.00
As partial settlement we gave them P50k since it was the only amount we can afford for the meantime.
Since metal implant have not been adviced by the doctor yet we will not include cost of the said implant. But if in the future when the doctor recommend for the metal implant we will shoulder all the expenses for the operation And the cost of implant with estimated amount of P200k.
Questions:
1. Is the 500k being asked from us by the victim's immediate family valid considering the hospital expenses would not go beyond 100k?
2. Can my husband be charged under RA 4136 when in fact there he was not brought into any alcoholic test?
Though he was brought to the nearest govt hospital for medico legal but not valid alcoholic test was done. Only the attending nurse indicated on the medical cert that he had alcoholic breAth.
Hoping for your response.
Thank you.