Presenting a Car Crash Claim in Court

Each year, vehicle collisions kill or injure millions of Americans. These serious injuries are usually permanent. Such injuries cause significant economic losses. On top of ongoing medical bills, permanent injuries often destroy earning capacity. The emotional distress these injuries cause often exceed the physical pain. As a result, most car crash victims are entitled to tens of thousands of dollars.

Obtaining maximum compensation is a lot like preparing a good meal. Combining the ingredients is a good start, but only a good start. A good chef, and a good Sugar Land car accident lawyer, must finish the job and resent the ingredients in the proper way. The better a dish looks, the more likely it is that a judge or jury will give compliments to the chef and award maximum compensation.

Defective Product

It’s hard to believe, but sometimes an accident claim has little to do with the accident itself. Instead, a Missouri City personal injury lawyer focuses on the vehicles in the accident.

During the design process, vehicle manufacturers reluctantly add minimally required safety features to their blueprints. They almost never go the extra mile, which is what the duty of care requires. More on that below.

As a result, today’s cars and trucks are much safer than the ones that roamed streets and highways twenty years ago. But violent car crashes still extract a terrible toll, as mentioned above.

Manufacturing defects are almost as common. A vehicle may look safe on the drawing board, but when the manufacturer uses cheap parts during construction, that vehicle becomes unsafe.

Ordinary Negligence

Most driver errors, which cause over 98 percent of the car crashes in Harris County, are negligence. Basically, negligence is a lack of ordinary care. In Texas, an ordinary negligence claim has four basic elements:

• Duty: We touched on the duty of care above. This legal responsibility requires drivers to go the extra mile in terms of safety. For example, when they get behind the wheel, they must be entirely sober, not mostly sober. Commercial operators have additional legal responsibilities.
• Breach: Intoxication might be the most common impairment-related breach of duty. Others include driving while stoned or drowsy. Aggressive driving, like speeding, also breaches the duty of care, at least in most cases.
• Cause: Compensation is available if the breach substantially and foreseeability caused injury. Car wrecks usually have contributing causes, like bad weather. But they only have one substantial cause, which is usually a breach of duty. Foreseeability of injury is essentially possibility of injury. Tortfeasors (negligent drivers) aren’t legally responsible for freak accidents.
• Damage: Compensation in a car crash claim usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering. Additional punitive damages may be available as well, in a few extreme cases.

Frequently, a third party, like a commercial driver’s employer, is financially responsible for the compensation in a personal injury case.

Negligence Per Se

If available, negligence per se eliminates the need to prove the elements of a negligence case. Tortfeasors who break safety rules and cause crashes are liable for damages as a matter of law.

Alcohol is a good example. If the tortfeasor was legally intoxicated, the negligence per se doctrine is available. If the tortfeasor was buzzed, an attorney typically uses the ordinary negligence doctrine to obtain compensation.

 Count On a Hard-Hitting Fort Bend County Attorney

Injury victims are entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney in Missouri City, contact the Henrietta Ezeoke Law Firm. Virtual, home, and hospital visits are available.

Source:

injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/introduction/