Help-car accident questions.

[cooljcookies]

What is the name of your state? Illinois

I will try to keep this to the point:

On Oct 22nd I was hit by an underage driver (15) who was driving his friends father's car (she was in the car too, also 15) while the father was out of town. They pulled an illegal u-turn across traffic, slamming into me. The driver was heavily ticketed etc, had to wait for their parents to come get them and I was transported to the hosp. by ambulance. I was driving my husbands car and unbeknownst to me, the insurance had lapsed. We filed a claim with the automobile owner's insurance which was eventually denied because their own client never reported the accident and would not return any correspondance from them or us. Basically, they're hiding out hoping it will go away.

I suffered a fractured wrist, missed one week of work and that was that. But since we had no coverage (I know...stupid us), we had to borrow money ($6000) to pay for the repairs on our car. Now we are trying to sue but the only lawyers we have found say that my injuries were not substantial enough to sue for that alone and especially since they know the claim was denied (even though we had a lawyer helping us then too) and that it actually means fighting and going to court. We can't find any lawyer that will sue (and sue who? the insurance co, the families involved?) for the injury AND the cost of the auto damages we had to cover.

What type of lawyer do we need, injury attorneys are not wanting my case. Do we file some sort of suit on our own? I find it hard to believe that this car full of 15 yr olds can slam into me, wreck our car, break my wrist and walk away scot free. There must be something I can do. I know it sucks that we didn't have insurance and were supposed to, but it's still 100% their fault and their responsibility, right?

Edited: I just wanted to make clear that there is absolutely no question as to the fault here, there were over 20 witnesses (some of whom I nearly ran over b/c they knocked me up on the sidewalk) on a busy Chicago street including an on-duty police officer who witnessed the accident.

[teflon_jones]

You'll need to sue the driver and/or the owners of the car for your damages. An attorney isn't going to take this on contingency because of your limited injuries, as you've already discovered. You'll either need to pay cash for the attorney or else represent yourself.

[cooljcookies]

Thanks for the reply. With the medical bills and damages, would this qualify as a small claim? I believe the limit for small claims in Illinois is 10k and my bills come to approximately 11k. What type of suit would this be considered?