How Can an Accident Attorney Help with Complex Cases in Eagle Pass?

If you’ve been in an accident, you might already be realizing that the path forward isn’t always straight and smooth. Sometimes accidents can get pretty complex, and when that happens, getting an accident attorney who has familiarity with the Eagle Pass, TX area and our local courts can help to smooth the road.

How Can an Accident Attorney Help with Complex Cases in Eagle Pass?

1. By Doing a Full Investigation

If the police were called to your accident scene, that’s great, and the police do have a lot of experience with accidents and can give an informed opinion about what took place. But their opinion is just that: an opinion. They were not actually there, and occasionally when things are particularly complex, it’s not easy to work out precisely what happened.

A skilled accident attorney knows how to conduct a private investigation into the events that can turn up evidence that might be missing otherwise. Your attorney might hire a private investigator, might work with accident reconstruction specialists to look at the evidence and build a solid story about exactly what happened, or might subpoena important evidence that you would otherwise not be able to access. This might be anything from the driving record of a truck driver working for a trucking company to the video footage of a security camera from a nearby area.

2. By Properly Calculating Damages

Sometimes, what’s complicated about a case is primarily figuring out how much you are actually owed in damages. If you have a pre-existing condition, or if you were injured so badly that you’re going to have ongoing health needs and have to calculate what you’ll need far into the future to cover them, things can be very difficult to work out. An experienced attorney will have lots of experience in calculating damages, including long-term medical needs, and can bring this experience to your case.

3. By Offering Extensive Negotiation Experience

When a case is particularly complicated, negotiations can get tough. If insurance companies know that there is any question about the full extent of liability, they will work very hard to try to put as much blame onto others as possible in order to minimize the liability of the person they cover (and thus minimize what they have to pay).

If you don’t have negotiation experience, you are unlikely to be familiar with the tactics that the insurance company may pull out at this point, and it’s easy to get blindsided. A lawyer brings experience with negotiation to your side of the table and keeps you from being railroaded by an insurance company trying to take advantage of a complex situation to minimize their liability.

4. By Helping You Deal With Government Entities

Whenever the government is involved, a car accident situation gets extremely complex. The Texas Tort Claims Act allows you to sue the state of Texas under very limited circumstances, and only for car accidents where one of the vehicles involved was being operated by a government official or for an accident on land owned by the government. In order for your case to qualify, you have to be able to prove that the party who injured you was acting “within the scope of their employment,” and sometimes this can be difficult to prove. The line for when a person is acting privately and when they’re acting as an employee of the government can be murky.

Also, the statute of limitations on these kinds of claims are much shorter. Normally, you have two years from the time that you get injured to file a personal injury claim, but if a government entity is involved, you have to notify the government that you intend to bring a claim within six months. This notification has to be done exactly right, and if it’s not, you may lose your right to sue it all.

If you are bringing a claim against a local municipality rather than the state of Texas, you may have an even shorter time in which to bring a claim: it all depends on the local laws, which is why you want someone who has specific experience in the courts of our area.

5. By Going Up Against Powerful Trucking Companies

Many of the most complex accidents on the road are caused by big trucks. Many of these trucks are operated by drivers from out of the state and by companies with no official business address here in Texas. This can make it especially difficult to deal with the accident and get someone to come back to you to answer questions. Trucking companies are also notorious for misclassifying drivers to avoid any liability in an accident. If you find yourself in an accident involving an 18-wheeler or other commercial truck, it’s especially important to have an experienced attorney on your side who can help to properly investigate the accident and the company to protect you and find out exactly what happened.

6. When the Other Side Won’t Budge

In simpler accidents, where the liability is very clear and your damages aren’t extensive or ongoing, you may be able to get an insurance company to offer a settlement quite quickly, and it may be fairly close to what your damages actually are. But whenever cases get complex, such as when your injuries are particularly extensive or there are questions about liability, you may run up against an insurance company that simply puts its foot down and will not negotiate.

They may be offering you a settlement that is far below what your case is worth or no settlement at all. In cases like this, you may have no choice but to take the insurance company to court, and having a lawyer at this point is invaluable. If you find yourself in this situation, simply getting an attorney at all may be enough to bring the other side to the negotiating table. Once you have an attorney, they will realize that you’re serious about getting compensation and are willing to take them to court if that’s what it takes. You may have to go to court in the end; but having an attorney is actually your best shot at avoiding that.

7. When Punitive Damages Are a Possibility

Punitive damages are very rare in personal injury cases. They are not awarded to recompense a victim for losses but to punish the responsible party for behavior that was particularly egregious. These are most common in cases where there was willful negligence or where someone harmed you on purpose and the court wants to set an example. If you believe that your accident was due to willful or gross negligence, or if you were deliberately harmed with malice, there’s a good chance that you might be awarded punitive damages. It’s very important to talk with a lawyer about this because only a lawyer can give you a good idea of whether punitive damages are possible and what to discuss in negotiations or to claim in a lawsuit.

There’s a lot that a lawyer can do when you’re facing a complex accident case, so call 830-600-0000 or reach out to Marco Bass Injury and Accident Lawyers in Eagle Pass and San Antonio, TX today for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help.