Get Ahead in Your Personal Injury Case

3 Things That Can Affect Your Personal Injury Case

10 July 2015 by Kenneth Pierce

Car accidents are never fun - especially when you are injured. Whenever someone else is responsible for the accident, sometimes the only way you can collect compensation is to take them or their insurance company to court. However, you may not have an open-and-shut case. Here are three things that can affect your personal injury case.

1. No fault car insurance laws.

Your ability to collect personal injury compensation through the court system can be barred if your state has a no fault car insurance law. If your state has a no fault law, then you are required to seek compensation from your own car insurance company. Certain standards have to be met before you will be allowed to sue the person responsible for the accident. For instance, if your medical bills exceed a certain amount set by your state, you can sue the other party for the remaining balance after your insurance company pays their share.

There aren't many states that actually have no fault car insurance laws. The states that have no fault laws are:

• Kentucky
• Washington, D.C.
• Florida
• North Dakota
• Hawaii
• Kansas
• Minnesota
• Michigan
• New York
• New Jersey
• Massachusetts
• Utah
• Pennsylvania

2. You share fault in the accident.

One way that the defense will try to limit your ability to collect compensation in your personal injury case is to say that you, at the very least, shared fault in the accident. If the defense can prove that this is the case, it will affect your case.

If you state follows contributory negligence doctrine and you're found partially at fault for the accident, then you likely won't be able to recover any compensation for the accident.

However, if your state follows pure comparative negligence doctrine, the amount you are able to recover will be reduced by your degree of fault in the accident. For instance, if you're asking for $10,000 in compensation and the judge determines you were 25% responsible for the accident, you will only get 75% of $10,000. 

Many states follow proportional comparative fault. There are two different versions of this: 51% and 50%. In states that have proportional comparative fault at 51%, you can't sue for compensation if you are more than 51% responsible for the accident. In states that use the 50% version of the rule, you can't sue for compensation if you have an equal or greater degree of fault than the defendant. 

3. You didn't file your personal injury claim in time.

The thing about personal injury cases is you have to file your claim in a timely manner. Each state has its own statute of limitations on filing personal injury lawsuits. You could have anywhere between a year and six years to file your personal injury case. It just depends on the state the injury occurred in and what type of accident caused the injury.

Once the statute of limitations has passed for your personal injury case, you will not be able to collect any compensation. That is why it is important to seek legal help, such as from the Law Office of Daniel E Goodman, as soon as you encounter resistance from the other party or their insurance company for the first time.

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