Car Accident Settlement

Automobile accidents, personal injury accidents, slip and fall incidents, and industrial accidents occur every day. Those accidents that result in personal injury or property damage often end up in court as a lawsuit, and accident settlements can run from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars.

When two or more parties are involved in any type of accident, the victim or victims are entitled to compensation from the party that can be proven liable for the accident. The liable party can be a person, business or government agency. The victim usually contacts an attorney to represent him or her, and the lawyer then contacts the liable party before filing a lawsuit. Some cases are settled without going to court, but if a satisfactory accident settlement cannot be reached, the plaintiff and his or her attorney may decide to go to court where a jury will decide if the defendant is negligent and, if so, how much should be paid to compensate that victim. Reaching out-of-court accident settlements can take weeks or months. Going to court to receive an accident settlement can take months or even years!

The purpose of an accident settlement is to compensate the victim for his or her pain and suffering, to replace property damaged in the accident, and to cover medical expenses, lost wages, physical therapy and other services. While victims wait for accident settlements to be reached, many take advantage of funding companies to receive a lawsuit cash advance against the accident settlement.

Legal Claim is a national network of specialist personal injury solicitors operating nationwide throughout the United Kingdom who offer free car accident compensation advice. If you have been injured in an accident within the last three years that wasn't your fault you should contact us. You will receive a complete professional service from lawyers who specialise in claiming damages for personal injury.

Obtaining damages for personal injury can be a daunting task especially if you're not familiar with the procedures. If you have suffered a personal injury in an accident within the last three years that was not your fault you can usually make a claim from against the other driver involved. Most drivers are insured and a claim is effectively made against the insurers however a significant percentage of drivers are uninsured and in these cases a claim must be made to the 'Motor Insurers Bureau' (MIB) which is a fund set up to compensate the victims of uninsured or untraced drivers. The MIB has complex technical rules and these cases should always be supervised by a solicitor to ensure that the opportunity to claim is not lost due to an inadvertent breach of the MIB rules.

To claim damages you need to be able to prove that the collision was not your fault and that someone else was responsible. That means that it is necessary to prove negligence. In simple terms negligence is a failure to take reasonable care for the safety of others. Even if a driver is partly to blame it is still possible to claim against the other party using the doctrine of 'contributory negligence'. This means that if the accident was 30% your fault, then any damages that would otherwise have been paid by the other driver's insurers on a full liability basis are reduced by 30%. This type of arrangement does of course open the door for the other driver to claim 30% of his full liability damages against your insurers.

Certain classes of claimant can never be held to contribute including passengers who will always recover damages in full not withstanding that it may have been their own driver who was at fault. One spouse will often be able to claim car accident compensation against their husband or wife if they are injured in an accident caused by their driver's negligence. Degrees of family relationship are irrelevant when considering compensation for negligence.

Notwithstanding that car accident compensation claims are commonplace there are large numbers of solicitors who deal with them as only part of their workload and could not by any stretch of the imagination be said to be experts. Our solicitors deal exclusively in accident claims involving personal injury and many of them deal only in road traffic claims. Whilst almost any firm of solicitors will take on one of these claims it might no be your best bet to use someone who is not engaged in this work full time. We can guarantee you that your case will be handled by a specialist who is a member of the Law Society panel of personal injury experts and is also a member of The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. Our solicitors all have a track record of many years' successful claims settlements and your case will be in safe experienced hands.
Compensation that can be claimed is divided into two categories;

Special Damages represents compensation for items that can be calculated accurately and includes lost wages, medical expenses, damaged property and general expenses.

General Damages represents compensation for items that in the main must be assessed by a Judge and include pain and suffering for the injury, damages for loss of a desirable life style and loss of opportunity on the open labour market in the future.

The assessment of damages for pain and suffering is a matter of great difficulty. Money can never adequately compensate for physical injury however Judges use the wisdom of previously decided cases and are guided by a publication from 'The Judicial Studies Board' which sets of the basic figures applicable for various types of injury. Awards made by Judges may also be subject to appeal to a higher court if one party finds the award unsatisfactory.

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Car Accident Settlement