As one who has lived in the midwest and experienced heavy snowfall during some winters, I can tell you that as a homeowner, it was occassionally brought up by the city council that the sidewalk in front of an owner's house has to be shoveled and de-iced or the home owner would be liable if someone slipped and got hurt. Having said that, it looks (by your post) that the insurance realizes this.
If you spent and can document you spent 80,000.00 on your medical treatment concerning your injuries, why don't you seek total reimbursement? It seems 3000.00 is way less than what you should recover. How come you don't get a lawyer to represent your interests? It seems that you can easily get a lawyer to get you a reasonable sum as compensation.
did you ever think the insurance company made the offer simply to cause the OP to go away. Tendering an offer such as this in no way implies the insurance company believes there is any liability. It would cost the insurance company a couple grand simply to respond to any suit brought by the injured party so this is their method of spending that money and being assured the situation is closed.
as to the $80k. If OP has insurance that paid anything towards those costs, OP does not have standing to sue for anything the insurance company covered. The only possible claims the OP would have are for out of pocket expenses and pain and suffering (doubtful unless OP could prove negligence. In other words, when was the last snow and what did the homeowner fail to do to clear the sidewalk).
while there may be some liability on the homeowners part, there is a great deal of culpability on the OP's part due to the weather.
and williejo, what your town council states has absolutely no bearing on the situation or the actual liability in this situation. Different communities have different ordinances as to the requirements of maintaining the sidewalks across their property. Unless the OP's ordinances and state laws are identical to yours, there is no comparison possible.
additionally, OP implied this was not even on the public walkway but on the approach to the porch. As such, OP's possible claims are very different than for an injury on the public walkway. There are far too few details to even take a guess at any liability on the homeowners part if the injury was off the public walkway.
additionally, is the house owned by the resident?
Get a clue williejo. This is way more complex than your simplistic answer implies.
One more situation throws a wrench into the works as well. OP was performing a job. That can change the entire situation as well.
ammlvr2009; talk with a personal injury attorney. many have free consultations and most will take a decent case on contingency. If they will not consider taking this on contingency, accept that as they believe the case is not worth their time to try to fight it. You may have a case BUT in the same thought, maybe not. Too many possibilities to truly provide an answer but the fact there are considerable medical expenses already incurred and most likely more to come, it would be worth the actual visit to an attorney that can review all the pertinent details and make some sort of informed decision.
