If you have ever been in a car accident, chances are you or another person involved were injured. In 2019, personal injury cases increased by 36% over the previous year. On average, there are 6 million car accidents per year in the United States alone. 3 million of the people involved in those accidents are injured. If you are one of those 3 million individuals that have experienced any sort of physical trauma as the result of a collision you were involved in, you are probably wondering what you should expect in a personal injury case.

Gather Any And All Evidence You Can Immediately

In the age of smartphones, there is no reason you cannot begin your documentation of the incident in the seconds following its occurrence. Start taking pictures of everything. Every angle, every party involved, your injuries, your vehicle, their vehicle, the surroundings, the general conditions. Everything you can document, do it.

Get Medical Treatment

One of the best things you can do immediately following an accident is to seek medical attention, regardless of how you feel. The adrenalin in your system, and possibly some degree of shock, following an accident, will largely prevent you from feeling much of the pain you normally would. This is why it is important to get to an emergency room or hospital. They will be able to document all injuries, along with the date and time that they were sustained. 

If you wait to get medical attention, or tell people you do not feel like you are hurt and do not need a doctor, that will likely be used by the defendant’s insurance adjuster as an indication that your injuries were not as serious as you may have claimed.

Make sure you keep any appointments for treatments, rehab therapies, and so on. This is another way that the lawyer for the defendant will try to minimize your claim. If you claim you have a serious leg injury that limits movement and is very painful, but they see that you have only picked up one refill for your pain medication, and you have skipped or rescheduled several checkups with your doctor and physical therapist, it could be argued, likely with some success, that your injuries are not as severe as you are claiming.

Keep all receipts, bills, forms, and so on. Keep track of costs for medicines paid out of pocket and co-pays, hospital or doctor’s office parking fees, even the mileage to and from all treatments and appointments. Those will all be costs you will want to recover in your settlement.

Read Paperwork Carefully

Do not sign anything without consulting an attorney. The insurance adjuster may ask you to sign a waiver agreeing that you will only deal with them and will not bring any legal action against them. They often do this in the hopes that you will settle for much less than you deserve. Remember, they do not represent you or your interests, only your lawyer does that.

Consult a Personal Injury Lawyer

After the extent of your injuries has been assessed, contacting a personal injury lawyer should be your next step. You can handle smaller claims on your own, however, if you want to be fairly compensated for medical bills, loss of income, and emotional distress, a lawyer is going to be able to help you get the results you deserve. If you find yourself unable to work for more than just a couple of days, you have a serious injury such as a broken bone or that requires surgery, or your medical bills are more than you can afford, you should speak with a lawyer.

Personal injury lawsuits are designed to protect you. You will have quite a full plate with the medical bills, lost income or wages, emotional toll, and change in the daily routine that the accident has wrought on your life. A personal injury lawsuit is designed to protect your rights and your financial future. With the help of a good personal injury attorney, you may be able to obtain compensation for these items through an agreed-upon settlement with the defendant, or at trial via a judge or jury.

Your Lawyer Will Examine Your Claim And Review Medical Records

Of the many things your lawyer will do for you and your claim, one of them is going to be to interview you. Your lawyer will want to know every detail you can provide about the accident, your subsequent injuries, and any medical treatment you may have needed. The last thing you want to do is to surprise your lawyer when they think you have told them every possible fact. Make sure you answer them as completely and accurately as possible.

Following your interview, your lawyer will likely request all of your medical records and bills resulting from the accident and injury, and all records for any treatment you may have received for the condition relating to the case. Oftentimes, this step can take months. 

Another task your lawyer is uniquely qualified to do is to begin to establish negligence. It is vital to the success of your case to establish that the other party was negligent or failed to exercise reasonable care for your safety. If they can be determined to be negligent, they could be liable for any damages and compensation you seek. Types of damages and compensation you may be able to recover are medical expenses, lost income, diminished earning capacity, and pain and suffering.

Your Lawyer Determines Demand Amount and Negotiate

It is a well-known fact that plaintiffs who “lawyer up”, generally recover more in terms of a settlement and associated damages. The average recovery amount for people who hire an attorney is three times higher than people who try to settle or go to trial without a lawyer. This is because a good attorney will be experienced at placing a value on a claim, and subsequently negotiating with the defendant.

The overwhelming majority of claims, approximately three-quarters of them, are settled before a suit is ever filed and everyone goes to court. If your lawyer thinks the case can be settled, they will make an initial demand for recovery to the defendant’s attorney or insurance adjuster.

There is a point of your medical treatment and recovery from your injuries known as the maximum medical improvement, or MMI. The plaintiff’s MMI is when they are through with all medical treatment and they are as recovered as possible. The reasons for this are twofold, firstly, until the MMI is reached the lawyer is unable to value the case as accurately. Secondly, if the plaintiff is not at MMI and the case has to go to trial, the judge or jury may undervalue future medical treatment and costs, and thereby undervalue the case.

If the two sides go through negotiations, which can take some time, and are still unable to agree on what constitutes an acceptable settlement, then the case will move into litigation.

Your Lawyer Will File The Lawsuit

Litigation will begin when your lawyer files a personal injury lawsuit in the appropriate court. This step will also start the clock counting down on when the case may end up going to trial before a judge or jury.  The pretrial procedures will vary from state to state, but generally speaking, your case will need one to two years before it can go to trial. This will also be affected by the state’s statute of limitations.

The time limits and statutes that dictate when things must be done are another good reason to contact a qualified attorney as soon as possible. Time is of the essence in all personal injury claims.

Discovery And Fact-Finding In Personal Injury Cases

When the discovery phase begins, each side investigates the other side’s claims, defenses, facts, and information. They each send questions, known as interrogatories, requests for documents to each other, and take depositions of all parties involved, including the plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses. This process itself can take up to a year, depending on state-mandated deadlines and case complexity.

Negotiation And Possible Mediation

Once the discovery phase comes to a close, the attorneys will generally talk about settlements again. Often, now that both sides see all the information gained during discovery, they will be able to come to a settlement agreement. Other times, they will try a mediation phase where there will be an impartial third party that will try to help the two sides to meet in agreement. When mediation fails, the case is scheduled for a trial.

Trial

A personal injury trial can be extremely short and can finish in a day or a few days, or they can stretch on for weeks if there is a large amount of evidence or witnesses that need to be examined. An important thing to remember is that while your trial is scheduled for a specific day, it does not mean that the trial will occur on that date. Trials are often pushed back or rescheduled due to the availability of the judge or lawyers. If and when you hear that your trial has been rescheduled, do not assume the worst, it is likely just a scheduling hiccup.

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