If you or a loved one was involved in a car accident, you could now be facing substantial medical expenses that might leave you and your family in dire financial straits. Even if your injuries were not that bad, any medical bills you faced or time missed at work results in economic damages that you should be reimbursed for, in addition to any pain and suffering you should be paid for.
Our attorneys help victims of car crashes and their families get compensation for what happened to them. This might mean filing an insurance claim, or it might mean taking your case all the way to trial before a judge and a jury. Either way, our lawyers are prepared to help you.
For a free evaluation of your legal case, contact Howe Law at (844) 876-4357 as soon as you can.
Getting Compensation for a Car Accident in Redan, GA
After a crash, the damages you and your family face should not be your responsibility alone. The costs of medical care and even vehicle repairs could be quite high, as could the cost of other services you need, like additional childcare expenses, medical transportation, physical therapy, and help around the house. You could also be out of work, meaning that your income is not there to help pay for these expenses. At the end of the day, the driver who caused your crash should be the one to pay for these costs, but it often helps to have an Atlanta car accident lawyer on your side to get them to pay you.
Filing an Insurance Claim
If you have your own first-party benefits on your insurance that can pay you regardless of who caused the accident, this can help you get some damages paid up front. However, you should not rely on these MedPay policies and other similar policies to cover your damages in whole. First, they often require deductibles, meaning you are still paying something out of pocket. Second, they usually will not cover everything, meaning that you will again be left picking up the tab.
Car insurance in Georgia is designed such that the at-fault driver’s insurance should cover your accident, but you need to prove they were at fault and convince the insurance company to pay you first. Often, insurance companies deny blame, cut down damages, and make it hard to get compensation. This means we often move onto an alternative: suing in court.
Suing in Court
When you file a lawsuit, the driver and their insurance company have no choice but to respond to the allegations in front of the judge and jury. This forces them to the negotiating table, where we can try to negotiate a fair settlement. If they refuse and want to go to trial, then we can fight the case at trial to get your damages paid. However, most cases do ultimately settle.
Damages You Can Receive
Compensation can be claimed for any and all financial damages you face, known as “economic damages.” As discussed above, this can include medical bills and other expenses you face because of the accident. It can also involve money you lost, such as lost earnings and lost wages.
On top of this, you can claim compensation for the physical and mental injuries you face. This is usually called “pain and suffering,” and these “non-economic damages” account for mental anguish, physical discomfort, emotional damage, and more.
What You Need to Prove in a Car Accident Claim in Redan, GA
In your claim, your lawyers will have to prove that the other driver was the one who was legally at fault for your crash. Courts usually analyze fault as “negligence,” meaning that you will need proof that the other driver violated some legal duty, which caused the crash. It is not enough to show that the driver caused the crash; there must be something they actually did wrong to cause the crash.
Examples of Negligence
If the driver hit you solely because of wet road conditions or because they had a medical emergency like a sudden seizure, then the crash would not be their fault. However, if they were driving too fast for slippery roads (even if they were under the speed limit) or they knew about their seizure risk and drove anyway, the analysis might be different. Similarly, if they hit you because they were pushed into you by another driver, it would not be their fault – but it could be the other driver’s fault. Our lawyers need to follow the facts where they go and present the full picture to the judge and jury in your case.
Is a Traffic Violation Necessary?
To be able to rule that the other driver was at fault, the court usually needs to see that some kind of traffic violation occurred. Speeding, drunk driving, distracted driving, running a red light, or even changing lanes without signaling would constitute a breach of duty that could supply fault in your case. Alternatively, if the driver did something objectively unreasonable that does not explicitly violate a traffic law, such as doing their makeup or tying a tie, that could also be a breach of the duty to drive in a reasonably safe manner.
Evidence Needed
Courts need to see sufficient proof of your allegations as well. The evidence you can produce in your case will usually involve testimony from yourself and other witnesses, as well as photos of the damage, copies of medical records and bills, damage appraisals, and any other evidence you can collect. If needed, we can speak with crash reconstruction experts and others who can help provide scientific or technical evidence as well.
Burden of Proof
The “burden of proof” in these cases is essentially an “over 50%” or “more likely than not” standard known as a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. This is a relatively plaintiff-friendly standard and means you only need to win by a slim margin to win your case.
Call Our Redan, GA Car Accident Attorneys Today
Call (844) 876-4357 for a free case assessment with Howe Law’s car accident lawyers today.
