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If you’ve been injured in an accident, and someone else is negligent and therefore liable for your injuries, you must consider every factor that could influence your total compensation. This can be hard to do if you don’t have experience, which is why a San Antonio personal injury attorney is so important. Here are just some of the things your attorney will do to help you maximize your compensation.
The first step in getting compensation is visiting a local lawyer who has experience in the San Antonio courts and with Texas personal injury law. Good personal injury lawyers offer confidential, free initial assessments to help you understand the strength of your case, how much it might be worth, whether it’s worth pursuing, whether it’s likely to be resolved in negotiations, and what your next steps should be.
This is also, incidentally, a good chance for you to see if a lawyer has what you’re looking for. Look for a lawyer who will tell you the truth, who is easy to communicate with, and who you feel comfortable talking to. When your initial evaluation is done well, you can go into your claim with a strong understanding of what it’s worth, exactly what you need in order to prove it, and confidence that your lawyer will be there at every step along the way.
Whatever kind of accident you have been in, everyone must thoroughly understand what exactly happened so that fault can be assigned correctly. You may assume that you know exactly what happened, and in some cases that’s true, but more times than you might think, a person who actually suffers in an accident doesn’t know all the details.
You could only see things from your own perspective, and there might easily have been things going on elsewhere that you were unaware of. And you can’t expect the liable party to volunteer information that proves they are liable (or more liable than they already seem). Your lawyer will look for all the evidence, talk to witnesses, and get a solid understanding of exactly what happened, which is important for the next step…
In Texas, so long as you were not more than 50% responsible for an accident, you can collect damages. However, the amount of the damages you collect will be reduced by the same percentage as your fault. This is a good system in that it allows everyone who is injured to get at least something from the party primarily responsible, even if they were partly at fault themselves. But it also encourages at-fault parties and their insurance companies to do everything possible to minimize their own fault and pass as much blame to the victim as they possibly can.
Say you were in a car accident and have damages of $120,000. If you were found 10% responsible, the party who is primarily responsible could then pay you $12,000 dollars less. If they can bump that percentage up by even a few points, they could save themselves thousands of dollars, which you are then on the hook for. Things can be even more serious if your responsibility is greater, because if there’s any way they can push that responsibility over the line of 50%, they wouldn’t have to pay you anything at all.
One of the important things that your lawyer will do is to protect you from unfair accusations of fault and use the evidence to prove clearly who is it fault, and to what degree. Your lawyer knows about these tricks and will be watchful to defend you against them.
A lot of personal injury victims think it’s simple to calculate damages: you just total up your economic damages (bills and receipts), multiply that by a number between one and five to get your non-economic damages (pain and suffering), and you’re done!
In actuality, it’s a lot more complicated than that. There’s a lot of things that the average person misses as they total up their economic damages simply because they don’t have experience in doing so. One of the ways that your lawyer will maximize your compensation is by correctly including absolutely everything. Expect your lawyer to ask lots of questions to dig out expenses that you might not even have realized you paid. Your lawyer will then also help you to properly calculate non-economic damages like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, mental anguish, and more.
Punitive damages are pretty rare, but your lawyer will be able to help you argue for this if they’re justified in your case. Punitive damages are not designed to reimburse you, the victim, for any type of loss. Instead, these damages are entirely about punishing the guilty party. They are only awarded when the liable party’s behavior crosses a line from ordinary negligence to gross negligence or even deliberate intention to harm.
As a lay person, you are unlikely to know where that line is, but your lawyer will have lots of experience in the local courts and will know what kind of arguments to make either to convince the court that punitive damages are justified or to show in negotiations that it is so likely a court would award them that the other side should come up with a higher settlement number.
Everything from the initial demand letter sent to the insurance company to the paperwork filed by the court needs to be done not only correctly but also in a way that presents your case in the best possible light. Your lawyer will be able to craft an argument that gives a clear and detailed explanation of why the other party is liable, what exactly you’ve gone through as a result, and why the demands that you are making are reasonable. Don’t underestimate the power of words in these situations.
Insurance companies often come up with a quick settlement early in the process, especially if there’s no real dispute over liability. These early offers are very often much too low. The hope is that you either are so desperate for money that you’ll grab at anything or that you don’t really understand what your claim is worth.
It’s your lawyer’s job to protect you from these so that you can get the maximum compensation. Your lawyer will help you here in a number of ways. First, your lawyer can help you if those bills are piling up. You can, for example, have your lawyer send a special letter to medical providers, explaining your situation and that you are bringing a personal injury claim, and in most cases medical professionals will pause collections until after the settlement is made. Your lawyer will also look over any settlement offers and let you know whether they’re fair and send replies that make it clear you understand exactly what your claim should be.
If you want to maximize your compensation, working with a lawyer is a must. Contact us today at Marco Bass Injury and Accident Lawyers in San Antonio for a free consultation and experienced help.
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