Every year, thousands of Texas residents, tourists, and families sustain injuries because of someone else’s negligent actions or wrongdoing. If you have found yourself in this position, you may be overwhelmed with lost income, medical costs, and pain. Fortunately, state law makes it possible for you to take action and not have to bear this trauma alone. Filing a personal injury lawsuit to receive monetary damages for the harm you suffered is vital to your recovery. This compensation provides you with needed funds to cover financial losses and addresses non-economic damages like mental anguish and pain.
The long-term consequences of suffering a personal injury aren’t always apparent at first. Make sure you consult with an experienced Midland accident attorney before making any decisions about your claim. At Texas Car Crash Attorney Group, we offer a free initial consultation to assess your case and the damages you have suffered because of your injuries. Our personal injury trial lawyers will advise you on your rights and review what next steps are best for your case.
What Needs to Be Proven in a Personal Injury Lawsuit?
Texas personal injury law requires victims to prove that another party’s negligence caused their injuries and related damages. To best determine if you can receive compensation in a lawsuit against those at fault, a skilled personal injury lawyer will evaluate the following:
- Is it possible to prove negligence?
- What kind of serious injury did you suffer?
- Are damages recoverable for your case?
Because negligence occurs when a person fails to provide a duty of care, you must prove their actions are responsible. When someone’s actions fall outside of the normal range of care for someone else in similar circumstances, it’s considered negligent. Situations involving car accidents involve someone deciding to drive while intoxicated or failing to allow for stopping distance. One could also be considered negligent for failing to follow the law.
The following examples are situations of negligent liability:
Drunk Driving
State and local laws have explicit rules when behind the wheel that must always be followed. Driving with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08% or higher violates Texas drunk driving statutes. Even if a blood alcohol concentration falls below the .08% level, there are ways to show that a driver has lost the normal use of their mental or physical faculties and therefore are negligently driving in an intoxicated state.
Dangerous Driving
Motorists failing to follow set speed limits and other regulations could be liable if they cause an accident by breaking the law. Some of these are black and white like speeding. Others are subject to interpretation such as following too closely. Texas Car Crash Attorney Group attorneys are familiar with the Transportation Code and related case law and how to apply it in your case.
But, personal injury suits don’t hinge on someone breaking the law to find them negligent. Many times, one is at fault for negligent actions that aren’t illegal. Driving too fast in hazardous conditions or driving with a BAC under the legal limit are prime examples of this fact.
Motorcycles
Motorcyclists are incredibly vulnerable to the kind of negligent driving we’ve noted. Every rider knows the feeling of seeing a car California roll a stop sign in their pathway or had a car make a lane change as if you were not there. In a car, a wreck in those situations might be a fender bender. On a bike, its a hospital trip.
It is important to be aware that negligence could be partially applied to the rider if they failed to wear a helmet. This is despite it being legal not to do so. The court may still view this as contributory and reduce your compensation by the percentage of your liability. Worse, if you have 51% or more responsibility, you won’t recover any compensation at all. These cases demand competent representation.
Dram Shop and Host Liability
Texas makes it illegal for any establishment or host to serve alcohol to someone that is visibly intoxicated. If one breaks this law and the inebriated individual causes an accident that harms others, all parties involved may be liable to the victim.
Commercial Vehicles
Texas is a hub for transportation companies and manufacturers. Midland highways regularly have commercial vehicles like 18-wheelers, dump trucks, and buses passing through its city every day.
Federal, state, and local laws recognize the potential dangers of these machines due to their sheer size and power. When a transportation company fails to maintain a big rig or a driver doesn’t take their legally required breaks, tragedy often strikes. Deciding to disobey these important safety regulations causes great harm to those involved and is negligent.
What Evidence Should I Prepare Before Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Midland, TX?
One primary way that personal injury lawsuits are successful is the use of physical evidence. This is something that can be seen or touched. Examples might include blown-out tire debris that caused you to lose control of your motorcycle while riding along 42nd Street. This kind of evidence also helps demonstrate the severity and extent of your injuries and even how the other party’s negligence contributed.
Depending on your accident circumstances, any proof could be washed away in the rain or swept up by a cleaning crew before it’s collected. This makes the preservation of any physical evidence you have of critical importance to your case.
Fortunately, there are many other ways to bolster your personal injury lawsuit, and a highly experienced accident attorney can help you.
Accident Scene Photos
The quickest and easiest evidence you or a family member can grab are accident scene photos. While this may hinge on you not requiring immediate medical attention, getting quick photographs of important accident details is helpful. Police may also do so, but they will only focus on the position of the vehicles and the street layout. You capture essential information by taking photos of additional features like skid marks, debris, license plate numbers, driver’s licenses, and insurance cards.
Police Reports
Accident information is also found in police reports that are usually available to the public a few days after the incident. These are considered reliable evidence because law enforcement acts as an objective third party to your case. Obtaining a copy of this report to help your Midland personal injury attorney will be an immense benefit to your accident case.
Eyewitness Statements
Many negligence-related accidents happen in public places with a lot of bystanders nearby. Some may even attempt to render aid, and their eyewitness account of what happened will prove valuable. If you are able, it’s important to get their name and contact information and any statements of what they saw. The more third-party perspectives you can bring as evidence to support your personal injury lawsuit in Midland, TX, the better.
Medical Records
Medical reports are necessary to prove the extent and severity of your injuries, and they verify the circumstances of your accident. These are some of the best pieces of evidence when trying to justify larger compensation awards for long-term medical care liability. Using your medical records to establish that you suffered injuries from the other party being negligent and not pre-existing conditions is also essential.
Pay Stubs and Tax Returns
You suffer more than just injuries and emotional trauma after an accident. Being unable to work adds to this stress because you lose potential income needed for living costs. Whether you missed a week of work or developed a disabling condition, you need to show what your income was before getting hurt. Using past pay stubs and tax returns can help establish just how much your finances have suffered because of another’s negligent actions.
Medical Costs
Another critical piece of evidence to prove the financial hardship you’re enduring after being hurt is medical costs. Receiving necessary treatment to heal is an expensive process for many victims of negligence. Hold onto any medical bills, credit collection notices, and payment plans you have related to your accident injuries.
Texas Car Crash Attorney Group personal injury trial lawyers understand that collecting or preserving evidence after a traumatic event can be impossible sometimes. We help clients who were incapacitated by the accident they suffered by gathering much of this information on their behalf. Our legal team is happy to conduct witness interviews, request necessary medical records and bills, and other related tasks for your case. You deserve a chance to recuperate and process the trauma you’ve survived and let us handle the rest.
How Long Does an Average Personal Injury Lawsuit Take if I Refuse to Settle?
Predicting how long a personal injury lawsuit can take is almost impossible to say for sure. No two cases are ever identical, and the elements involved can impact any case deadline significantly. Complex case circumstances can indeed be the most considerable influence on process time, but this isn’t set in stone.
Sometimes it has more to do with the insurance company handling your damage claim and the compensation amount you’re seeking. A straightforward claim can drag out for months if the insurance company refuses to cooperate and acts in bad faith. This is why you need the personal injury trial lawyers of Texas Car Crash Attorney Group to prepare your case for the courtroom from the beginning.
Insurers that purposely go out of their way to fight your recovery claim are always frustrating, but another factor can be your healing time. Before you begin any settlement negotiation or go before a jury, you must reach your maximum recovery level. This means that your doctor believes that your accident injuries have healed as best as possible.
Having a clear picture of your long-term recovery prognosis is critical when determining how much compensation you need. Our bodies need time to go through this process, and while settling early sounds excellent, it can do more harm than good. Not accounting for future health issues caused by your injuries could leave you paying for the expense of treatment all on your own later.
Do I Need to Hire a Personal Injury Trial Lawyer?
If you or a loved one were involved in a car accident, you might be wondering if you need to hire a personal injury trial lawyer. This answer is almost always yes. Insurance companies are large profit-making corporations and will have a team of lawyers on stand-by if you won’t take a lowball settlement offer. They need to be profitable, and paying out a claim for what it’s worth goes against that desire.
From trying to convince you that an attorney will take all of your money to claim denials over a technicality, insurers will not help you. Hiring an experienced accident lawyer that will go to court is crucial to your lawsuit. They know how to maximize the compensation you receive and can point out damages you should ask for that you didn’t about, including:
- Lost earnings (past and future)
- Diminished work capacity
- Medical expenses, including future costs
- Transportation costs to and from related doctor appointments
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Related household expenses
- Loss of consortium
- Wrongful death damages
Beyond the benefit of having a dedicated team of legal experts working your case, you will still receive a larger award with representation than without. You will also be able to focus on healing while your attorneys go to trial on your behalf. Don’t shoulder the burden of your damages and losses alone. Texas Car Crash Attorney Group understands the importance of successfully bringing your claim to a conclusion as quickly as possible, but not for less than what you deserve.
Trust our team of personal injury trial lawyers and our decades of dedicated legal services to the residents of the Midland, TX, community. We understand that sometimes pursuing a trial is the only option to get your day in court and receive a fair damages award. Our firm works on a contingency basis so that you don’t have to worry about adding another financial stress to your plate in addition to the stress you are already facing.
Midland Personal Injury Trial Lawyers That Are Here to Help
If you or a loved one were hurt in an accident that caused you serious injury, you deserve to hold responsible parties accountable. Your physical, emotional, and financial recovery after sustaining injuries that have left you unable to work and in pain is vital. Don’t let the insurance companies convince you that you have to take the compensation offer that they want. Trust the personal injury trial lawyers of Texas Car Crash Attorney Group to step in and stand up for the amount you deserve.
Our Midland attorneys are all too familiar with the strategies these corporations use to avoid their responsibility. With over 600 trials to our name, we have a unique perspective about how personal injury claims should be represented. Unlike plaintiff mill firms that only want to send emails back and forth and quickly settle with an adjuster, we aggressively pursue the compensation you need. As accident lawyers that go to trial, we prepare your case for the courtroom from the moment you choose us to represent you. Schedule a free consultation with one of our experienced attorneys to discuss your case.
