How a Golden Car Crash Victim Recovered Against an Unlicensed Driver and His Own Insurer
Result Snapshot
| Case Type | Car accident with an underinsured-motorist (UIM) claim and a first-party insurance bad-faith claim |
|---|---|
| Injuries | Back injury, traumatic brain injury, and tinnitus with hearing loss |
| Location | Golden, Jefferson County, Colorado |
| Resolution | 2024 settlement resolving the claims against the at-fault driver, the vehicle owner for negligent entrustment, and the client’s own UIM carrier for its claims handling |
| Result | $219,933.69 total |
| Attorneys | Todd A. Travis and Jordan Travis |
| Year | 2024 |
A Crash That Should Never Have Happened
A driver who should not have been behind the wheel ran a red light at speed and drove straight into the side of our client’s car. The driver was a minor. He had no license. He was steering a car that belonged to someone else. In a single moment in Golden, a person who had done nothing wrong was left with injuries to his back, his brain, and his hearing that followed him home and stayed.
On paper, the case looked small. The at-fault driver carried only Colorado’s minimum liability coverage, $25,000. That number is not a measure of harm. It is a ceiling someone else chose, and it sat far below what our client actually lost. Rampart Injury Lawyers refused to let that ceiling decide the value of a human being’s recovery.
By the time the case resolved in 2024, the recovery was $219,933.69, roughly seven and a half times the at-fault driver’s policy. Reaching that number took three separate fights at once: against the teen driver, against the adult who handed him the keys, and against our own client’s insurance company when it tried to pay less than the policy promised.
What Happened in Golden
Our client was traveling through an intersection in Golden, Colorado with the right of way. A vehicle approaching from a crossing direction ran the red light while traveling at a high rate of speed and struck our client’s car broadside, a collision often called a T-bone. Side-impact crashes give the body almost nothing to absorb the force, which is part of why our client’s injuries were as serious as they were.
The driver was a minor operating his mother’s vehicle. He did not hold a valid license, and the reason mattered: he had already been involved in several prior collisions. The keys to that car should have been out of his reach. They were not. His mother continued to let him have access to the vehicle anyway. That decision, made before the crash and repeated over time, is what later opened a second door to accountability.
Injuries and Medical Impact
Our client suffered a back injury, a traumatic brain injury, and tinnitus accompanied by hearing loss. A brain injury and persistent ringing in the ears are not the kind of harm that shows up neatly on an X-ray and then fades. They change how a person sleeps, concentrates, works, and sits in a quiet room. Tinnitus in particular has no off switch; it travels with a person through every part of the day.
The medical picture here was the heart of the case. Every other decision, from how we approached the at-fault driver to how hard we pushed the insurance company, flowed from the size and permanence of what our client had actually lost. The damages were the engine. Everything else was the machinery built to make the insurers pay for them.
The Legal and Insurance Challenges
Three obstacles stood between our client and a fair recovery.
First, the coverage gap. The at-fault driver carried only $25,000 in liability coverage, Colorado’s minimum. A young, unlicensed driver does not have personal assets that meaningfully expand on that number. Standing alone, the at-fault driver’s policy could not come close to covering a brain injury and a lifetime of tinnitus.
Second, the person who supplied the car. The harm did not begin at the intersection. It began when an adult kept handing car keys to an unlicensed minor who had already crashed more than once. Colorado law recognizes that an owner who entrusts a vehicle to someone they know, or should know, is likely to drive it dangerously can be held responsible for the resulting harm. That theory, negligent entrustment, reached past the driver and past his thin policy.
Third, and most painful for our client, his own insurance company. He had purchased underinsured-motorist (UIM) coverage for exactly this situation, a crash caused by someone without enough coverage. When he turned to that coverage, his carrier did not act like a partner. It ignored communications. It repriced his medical bills down to substandard rates that no provider had agreed to. It misstated what was actually in his medical records. Each of those moves shrinks a claim on paper while the real injuries stay exactly the same.
How Rampart Injury Lawyers Built the Case
We treated this as three connected cases that had to be won together, with the client’s damages at the center of all of them.
Proving the harm came first. The value of every claim in the file rose or fell on how clearly we could show what a back injury, a brain injury, and tinnitus had done to our client’s life. We built the damages so they could not be waved away, because that proof was the leverage behind every other move. Without it, the entrustment theory and the bad-faith claim would have had nothing to pay for. With it, they had a target.
Cracking the $25,000 ceiling. To reach beyond the driver’s minimum policy, we pursued the vehicle owner for negligent entrustment. The proof was the pattern: an unlicensed minor, several prior collisions, and an adult who kept granting access to the car anyway. That evidence reframed the case from a single bad moment into a foreseeable result of repeated choices, and it expanded who could be held responsible for our client’s losses.
Holding the UIM carrier accountable. We documented the insurer’s conduct rather than just complaining about it: the communications it let go unanswered, the medical bills it repriced to rates below what was charged and accepted, and the places where it misstated the medical records. Laid side by side, those acts showed a claim being managed downward for reasons that had nothing to do with our client’s actual injuries. We sued the at-fault driver for negligence, the vehicle owner for negligent entrustment, and our own client’s carrier for its claims practices, and we kept the proven damages in front of every defendant at once.
That was the strategy in one line: the damages drove the case, and the negligent-entrustment and bad-faith pressure were the tools that forced the insurers to actually pay for them.
The Result
The case resolved in 2024 for $219,933.69, far above the at-fault driver’s $25,000 in liability coverage. The recovery reflected three things working together: the strength of the damages our client carried, the negligent-entrustment theory that reached the vehicle owner, and the documented bad-faith conduct that put real pressure on the UIM carrier.
Every case turns on its own facts, and this outcome does not predict or promise what any other claim will produce. It does show what a layered approach can do when a single minimum-limits policy is treated as the floor of the conversation instead of the ceiling.
Colorado Injury Law Takeaway
If the driver who hurt you carried only minimum coverage, that is the start of the analysis, not the end. Colorado sets low mandatory minimums, and a serious injury can dwarf them in a single bill. Two paths often matter more than the at-fault policy itself.
Underinsured-motorist coverage. Colorado’s UM/UIM statute (C.R.S. section 10-4-609) governs the coverage you buy to protect yourself when the at-fault driver does not carry enough. It is first-party coverage under your own policy, and it is built for exactly the gap this case presented.
First-party bad faith. When your own insurer unreasonably delays or denies benefits you are owed, Colorado law gives you more than a complaint. The common-law duty of good faith is well established (see Goodson v. American Standard Insurance Co., 89 P.3d 409 (Colo. 2004)), and Colorado’s statutory remedy for the unreasonable delay or denial of insurance benefits (C.R.S. sections 10-3-1115 and 10-3-1116) can allow recovery of two times the covered benefit plus reasonable attorney fees and costs. Repricing bills to rates no provider agreed to, ignoring communications, and misstating records are the kinds of conduct that put those remedies in play.
Negligent entrustment. When a vehicle owner hands the keys to someone they know, or should know, is likely to drive dangerously, Colorado recognizes a claim against the owner directly. Colorado adopted negligent entrustment in Casebolt v. Cowan, 829 P.2d 352 (Colo. 1992). An unlicensed driver with a history of crashes is close to the textbook example.
Frequently Asked Questions
Colorado’s minimum liability limits are low, so a serious injury can exceed them quickly. You may be able to reach beyond that policy through your own underinsured-motorist (UIM) coverage, and in some cases through claims against others who share responsibility, such as a vehicle owner who entrusted the car to an unsafe driver. C.R.S. section 10-4-609 governs UM/UIM coverage in Colorado.
Yes, in the right circumstances. If your insurer unreasonably delays or denies benefits you are owed, Colorado recognizes a common-law bad-faith claim (Goodson v. American Standard Insurance Co., 89 P.3d 409 (Colo. 2004)) and a statutory remedy under C.R.S. sections 10-3-1115 and 10-3-1116 that can allow two times the covered benefit plus attorney fees and costs.
Potentially. Under Colorado’s negligent-entrustment doctrine (Casebolt v. Cowan, 829 P.2d 352 (Colo. 1992)), an owner who provides a vehicle to a person they know or should know is likely to drive dangerously can be held responsible for the resulting harm. A history of prior crashes and the absence of a valid license are facts that can support such a claim.
Talk to a Colorado Injury Lawyer
If you were seriously injured in a crash in Golden or elsewhere in Jefferson County, and the at-fault driver was underinsured or your own insurer is not treating your claim fairly, Rampart Injury Lawyers can help you understand your options. Call (303) 766-8766 for a free consultation. You pay no attorney fees unless we recover for you.
Disclaimers
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is different and is decided on its own facts.
This page is attorney advertising and general information, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Communicating with the firm through this page does not create an attorney-client relationship, and information you send before being accepted as a client may not be treated as confidential.
To understand how the law applies to your situation, consult a licensed Colorado attorney about your specific facts.
Rampart Injury Lawyers is a trade name of Travis Legal Offices, LLC. Responsible attorney: Todd A. Travis. 333 Perry St #203, Castle Rock, CO 80104 | (303) 766-8766.
