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Car crashes can leave you with more than a busted car. They can leave you with physical injuries, trauma, uncertainty, and lots of financial stress. When combined, these stressors can tempt you to accept lowball insurance settlement offers that might not pay for all your damages, especially any future damages. Before you talk to an insurance company about potential settlements, you must talk to a St. Louis car accident lawyer.
A personal injury attorney serves several purposes after a car accident. First, they can look at the facts and tell you whether you have a claim. Claims are based on fault, and if you are at fault in an accident, you may not have a claim against other parties. Second, they can identify potentially liable parties. In addition to the other drivers, there may be third parties that contributed to the accident. Then, they can help you identify what type of damages may be available—economic, non-economic, and potentially punitive.
Almost any type of motor vehicle accident can lead to a car crash claim. Rear-end collisions and accidents involving speeding are common. Other common causes of accidents include distracted driving, driving while intoxicated or under the influence, teen/inexperienced drivers, and bad weather.
Victims can recover if the other party is at fault. Missouri uses comparative fault, which means that plaintiffs can recover from other parties, even if the victim shares responsibility for the accident. Missouri takes a pure comparative fault approach, which means that a person is not limited from recovery even if they have most of the fault. Instead, the factfinder apportions 100 percent of the fault to all of the responsible parties – including, potentially, the plaintiff. It reduces the person’s damage award by their percentage of responsibility. A St. Louis attorney could help an injured party understand the allocation of fault after a car wreck.
One of the top concerns people have is about the value of their car accident claims. The monetary value of a car accident claim heavily depends on the severity of the injuries. For an accident with few—if any—injuries and just damage to the vehicle, a few thousand dollars could be a fair settlement amount. For an accident with substantial injuries, that amount will not even cover the cost of emergency room care.
To get a better idea of the potential value of a claim, an injured person needs to understand what type of damages may be available. Economic damages include direct or indirect financial losses such as:
Non-economic damages cover intangible losses. These are actual losses, but they lack a direct economic value. Examples of intangible losses include:
In rare cases, a person may also be entitled to punitive damages. Punitive damages do not compensate the injured person for their losses—instead, they punish the other party (usually the other driver) for their behavior. They are only available if a victim can demonstrate that the person engaged in gross negligence or intentional misconduct. A motor vehicle collision attorney in St. Louis could look at the circumstances of a case and explain the potential remedies available.
Because of Missouri’s pure comparative fault approach, it is not unusual for insurance companies or defendants to try to take a victim-blaming approach to car wreck cases. The more they can try to prove you contributed to an accident, the less they need to pay you. For a fender bender, sharing a small percentage of fault may not make a huge economic difference. However, for severe accidents, that same percentage can quickly amount to tens of thousands of dollars.
A St. Louis car accident lawyer from McCready Law could fight to help hold the other party responsible and keep you from accepting an unfair proportion of the responsibility. Schedule a free consultation to learn more.