When do you need to hire a car crash attorney?
Questions for Orange County Car Accident Victims Not every car accident necessitates legal counsel. For example, the average fender bender can be handled by the typical car owner. However, there are a number of cases…
Questions for Orange County Car Accident Victims
Not every car accident necessitates legal counsel. For example, the average fender bender can be handled by the typical car owner. However, there are a number of cases where you need to hire a car crash attorney.
Accidents Causing Significant Damage
We’ve said that you don’t need an attorney if the accident is literally a fender bender. However, the need for legal counsel goes up along with the total cost of the accident. It is worth it to hire an attorney to push the insurance company to pay the full value of your totaled car over accepting their settlement. When there are two feuding parties with medical and car repair bills, it is worth it to hire an attorney to determine who is to blame.
Multi-Car Accidents
Accidents involving multiple parties are complex simply due to the number of people involved. And it is rare for the liability to fall to one person. Furthermore, you don’t want to be the one blamed for the accident, since it puts you on the hook for everyone else’s car repairs, medical bills and lost wages. On the other hand, only an attorney can tease out all of the factors contributing to the accident and divide blame appropriately. This matters more than you think. For example, Orange County (indeed all of California) follows pure comparative fault, the rule since the California Supreme Court’s 1975 decision in Li v. Yellow Cab Co.: each injured person’s recovery is reduced by their own share of the fault, whatever that share is, and no percentage bars the claim. A $300,000 case with 30 percent fault becomes $210,000, and a driver found 60 percent at fault can still recover 40 percent of their damages.
Accidents Involving Big Rigs
Accidents involving tractor trailers and big rigs are far worse than those involving two similarly sized vehicles. The trucks are bigger, and they hit with more force when they strike someone. Tractor trailer accidents are much more likely to result in brain damage, paralysis and death because the trailer tends to strike above the car hood. Litigating these cases is also more difficult, because most big rigs are owned by a company, not an individual. You may end up with a multi-party suit, where the trucking company driving a company vehicle tries to hold the independent truck driver at fault. And the companies involved have the ability to hire attorneys to try to shift blame to the victim. Even independent truck drivers will fight hard in court, because being found to blame for the accident could cost them their commercial driver’s license or result in far higher auto insurance rates.
Determining liability in these cases can be challenging. Did they know that the brake discs were worn or the engine was overheating and choose to send someone on one more run? Was someone driving despite being tired or drunk? Were they trying to weave through traffic as if they were driving a passenger vehicle?
Car accident attorneys can help resolve problems and questions like those above. If you experienced a car crash in Orange County and need to hire a car crash lawyer, please don’t hesitate to call Kyle Scott Law in Tustin at 714-544-1460. If you’re hurt, we can help!