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What Is The Car Accident Lawyer Process Like?

The car accident lawyer process, or working with a car accident lawyer, should be a painless experience for the injured party. Though, what probably comes as the biggest surprise to clients who hire a personal injury lawyer is the amount of time it takes to settle a claim.

In order to be sure to get maximum value for your personal injury settlement, your personal injury lawyer must put together several different aspects of your claim. Ultimately, these will be compiled and make up your demand package. Your demand package is a combination of the law firm’s theory of liability against the insurance company, supported by claims of damages directly related to the accident.

The Intake Process

The first step in understanding your car accident or slip and fall claim comes from the intake process. Some intake is done during the FREE CASE EVALUATION or phone consultation. During this time, the lawyer begins to understand the basic facts surrounding your accident. This includes a review of the police report, a discussion with you, and potentially a discussion with any witnesses who may have seen the accident.

Establishing The Claim

Once the intake is completed, we will start a claim for bodily injury with the insurance company representing the at-fault party. This serves to stop communication from the insurance company to you directly. It also puts the insurance company on notice that they have a potential lawsuit against them for the acts of one of their drivers.

The typical response from the insurance company is that they are investigating the claim, and they request we send them our theory of liability together with all documentation of injuries.

Confirming You Injuries And Treatment

If you are still treating, we will stay in touch with you periodically to confirm your treatment status. Once you have completed your treatment, we quickly place orders for all medical records and medical treatment you received from all providers. These serve to prove your injuries and establish your medical billing associated with the claim. Some of your billing will constitute medical liens which need to be paid through your settlement per federal or state law.

Establishing Medicare, Medicaid and ERISA Liens

While a medical provider can claim a lien against your settlement proceeds, they must do it by taking affirmative action. Medicare, Medicaid and some health insurance companies (ERISA LIENS) automatically have a lien created in their favor, depending upon whether they treated you for injuries related to the accident. It is your personal injury lawyer’s job to identify these liens and to be sure to address them from your settlement proceeds. A failure to do so can be catastrophic for you, financially. Identifying the liens prior to reaching a settlement ensures that your settlement is high enough to pay the liens and adequately compensate you for your loss.

Establishing And Documenting Lost Wages

If you have lost wages from your accident, your attorney will have your employer sign a Lost Wages Affidavit in conjunction with your demand package. This affidavit will be submitted in support of being reimbursed for lost wages. Quite often, your personal injury lawyer will need to defend the hours you missed, provide proof of income prior to the accident, and show your employer is being honest about the hours you missed and your rate of pay. Your medical records must also support the lost wages affidavit with notes indicating your physician wrote you out for work for the days in question.

Negotiating The Claim To Settlement

Negotiating your claim to settlement is a lengthy process. Insurance companies are notorious for low offers. They make attempts to de-value the medical treatment you received, and argue balances of your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. They attack your personal injury lawyer’s theory of liability and claim Contributory Negligence as a way to offer a lower settlement amount. We are accustomed to these strategies and we will defend against them at every turn.

Negotiating Your Medical Bills

Once we have decided together that you have your top offer, we will ask for your authority to negotiate your medical bills. While not all medical billing providers will reduce their billing, this quite often results in the lowering of your medical billing just prior to settlement. This serves to do one thing—put more money in your pocket. By minimizing the amount of your settlement that must go toward satisfying medical bills, we increase the amount you receive.

Receiving Your Check

The last aspect of your car accident lawyer process is distributing funds. Once you’ve reached settlement and signed a release for the settlement amount, your check typically arrives a week later. Your car accident lawyer process requires your car accident lawyer to deposit the funds into their NC State Bar trust account, and one day later we can disburse the funds to you and your medical providers. We also get paid at this time. You will sign off on a balance sheet or settlement sheet showing you all incoming funds, together with all disbursements. This way you know where every penny of your settlement funds went.

Tax Free Nature Of Settlement Proceeds

Most personal injury settlement proceeds are tax free. Exceptions would be where the settlement is specifically allocated to lost wages. In your typical injury settlement, this is not the case. For Workers’ Compensation claims, you will typically need to pay taxes on all lost and future wages being paid from the claim.

Speak With A Charlotte Personal Injury Lawyer Today

If you have questions about what the car accident lawyer process if like, or if you have general questions about a personal injury, call us today. You can call 704.749.7747 or click for a FREE CASE EVALUATION and we will contact you today. When it comes to choosing a personal injury law firm, we know you have options. We hope you choose to Recover With Us.

October 30, 2018/by Chris

Wilmington, NC Car Accident Lawyer

Auto Accident, Personal Injury

Working with personal injury clients in Wilmington, NC for car accidents is a critical part of our practice. We are a North Carolina based personal injury and car accident law firm and we focus our representation between Wilmington, NC and Charlotte, NC.

If you’ve been in a car accident in Wilmington, NC or in New Hanover county, we would love to speak with you. With a free phone consultation you can determine whether you have any rights against the driver who hit you. Our job is to help you determine that. If you’d like to have a lawyer call you, just click HERE and make the request. You’ll receive a call today.

Working With A Wilmington, NC Car Accident Lawyer

Every law firm is different, but at The Layton Law Firm, we have built our reputation upon achieving good results for clients while keeping them informed along the way. A car accident is disruptive to your life, and we are sensitive to that. Whether you’ve been in a Truck Accident, a Pedestrian Accident, or even if you’ve been rear-ended in a fender bender, it’s never something you planned or invited into your life.

Dealing with insurance companies on your own is not only frustrating but it’s dangerous—you can easily sign away your rights against the insured driver who caused your injuries. When you work with a Wilmington, NC car accident lawyer, not only do you preserve your rights, but you turn all of that stress over to the lawyer and the paralegals.

Recover With Us

If you read the articles on this website, you’ll find over and over again the phrase Recover With Us. This is the hallmark of The Layton Law Firm. It is our belief that we can play a critical role in recovering financially for our clients, and that we also express care in such a way that we help clients to recover emotionally from a car accident, workers compensation injury, slip and fall, or any other injury.

We hope you’ll choose to Recover With Us. Call 704.749.7747 or click HERE to speak with an attorney now. We’re here to help.

August 27, 2016/by Chris

NC Car Accident Laws And Your Personal Injury Case

Auto Accident, Personal Injury

What Are The NC Car Accident Laws?

In North Carolina, there is not a specific set of car accident laws. Instead, attorneys use the existing set of case law to guide them. What this means is that rather than look to a NC car accident law, your Charlotte, NC personal injury lawyer assesses the body of cases that have been tried, to date.

How Will NC Case Law Affect Negotiations For My Car Accident?

Depending upon what judges and juries have decided in the past, regarding specific fact patterns in a NC car accident, your personal injury lawyer can better predict what a judge or jury will decide about your case. While there are instances where case law becomes “codified” or is passed as a statute in the state, most case law accumulates over the years in a way which helps lawyer assess whether they can win your case based on the facts you have.

Is Contributory Negligence Case Law?

If you’ve been reading about NC car accident laws, no doubt you’ve read about Contributory Negligence. Contributory Negligence is a doctrine that is followed by our state. As was decided in Sorrells v. M.Y.B. Hospitality Ventures, 332 N.C. 645, 648 (1992), “[A] plaintiff’s contributory negligence is a bar to recovery from a defendant who commits an act of ordinary negligence.” In that case, a patron became intoxicated at a restaurant and drove his car, which resulted in his death. His estate attempted to make a claim against the establishment that served him but his estate’s claim was barred by his contributory negligence.

Determining whether someone is contributorily negligent is also based on case law, as was decided in Newton v. New Hanover County Bd. of Educ., 342 N.C. 554, 564 (1996), where it was determined that “A plaintiff is contributorily negligent when he fails to exercise such care as an ordinarily prudent person would exercise under the circumstances in order to avoid injury.” These are the very elements of your case that your personal injury lawyer will argue for you, both at the claims level and at trial.

But How Will NC Car Accident Laws Apply To MY Case?

If you would like personal injury lawyer to assess your case for you, simply reach out to us. The assessment is free and there’s no obligation to move forward with our firm. You can reach us at 704.749.7747 or give us an email address HERE and we’ll reach out to you. We hope you’ll choose to Recover With Us.

July 13, 2016/by Chris

Tag Archive for: nc

Premises Liability

Whether you slipped on a wet floor in a gas station or tripped over misplaced items in a retail store if you’re injured at a place of business you may have a premises liability case. These cases often turn on both the negligence of the business owner or operator, and whether the injured individual was at fault to any degree.

Contributory Negligence

North Carolina is a contributory negligence state. Contributory negligence is discussed further HERE, but if the injured party is found to be 1% at fault, it may be a bar to recovery from the defendant/property owner.

Establishing Negligence

In establishing a case for negligence in an injury sustained at a place of business, the question commonly turns on the condition of the property and whether the owner was negligent in the maintenance of the property. Some facts that may be taken into consideration are whether a wet floor sign was present, how long the condition existed prior to the slip and fall, or whether the owner knew or should have known about the condition. Quite often, an injured party can establish the condition that existed numerous times on the property in the past and the owner did nothing to remedy it, negligence can be established.

Depending upon the duty owed to the injured by the property owner, establishing negligence requires different proof. The duty a landowner owes a guest, for instance, is different from the duty a landowner owes a trespasser—if at all. The same would be true for the duty owed by a restaurant owner to a patron.

Four Prong Negligence Test

In any negligence case, the following must be established:

Did the defendant owe a duty to the injured party;
Was there a breach of that duty;
Were the plaintiff’s injuries the foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s negligence;
Were there damages and what were they;

Call An Attorney

If you have any questions about an injury you sustained on property owned and operated by another, please call me at 704.749.7747. The call is free and you deserve answers.

December 10, 2014/by Chris