Vital Factors That Can Impact Your Car Accident Lawsuit

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Deciding to move forward with a car accident lawsuit requires careful deliberation. You’ll probably want to talk to your family about it. You need to let them know that this will disrupt the normal routine at home for a while. 

If you’re injured in a car accident, though, and you don’t feel like you can recoup your expenses from that without suing the other driver or their insurance company, you will probably have to move forward. You might want to balance the scales of justice, but you may also need to get the money back that you’re spending on things like medical bills, lost wages, and the repairs to the car.

Let’s talk about some of the most vital factors that are likely to impact your car accident lawsuit, should you decide to move forward with it.

Do You Live in an At-Fault or No-Fault State?

First, you’ll need to contact a reputable personal injury lawyer. Ideally, you want one that has plenty of experience in the car accident niche.

Once you have found an attorney who you think has the requisite skill and will represent you well, then you can talk to them about the car accident’s details. They will want to know all about what happened.

You can ask them if you live in an at-fault or no-fault car accident state, if you don’t know the answer yet. Perhaps you knew what kind of state you lived in even before the accident, or maybe you looked up the answer to that question right after the crash.

Whether you live in an at-fault or no-fault state matters a great deal in terms of your car accident lawsuit. If you live in an at-fault state, and you feel sure that the other driver caused the accident, then their insurance needs to pay for the damage to your car. However, their insurance company might not want to do that if they feel that maybe you caused the accident instead.

In that scenario, where you’re certain the other driver caused the crash, and you live in an at-fault state, you’re probably in for a fight with the other driver’s insurance company if they don’t agree about who’s the responsible party. They might try to give you a lowball settlement offer or attempt to contest the matter in court so that they pay you nothing.

Did Your Insurance Pay for Some of the Damages?

Maybe you’re in a no-fault state instead. In such states, it doesn’t matter who caused the accident. Your insurance will pay for it, at least up to the total dollar amount of your policy. In the insurance industry, they call such policies PIP, or personal injury protection.

Maybe you have a policy worth $50K. However, you exhaust that policy because the other driver totaled your car when they hit it. You also needed to have surgery after the accident. Those two things combined cost over $50K. 

If you exhaust the money from your policy, then you may need to sue the other driver to cover the additional damages. If you caused the accident, though, then suing them will probably get you nothing. 

Do You Feel You Need Money for Non-Economic Losses?

When suing another driver who you feel sure caused your accident, you need to think about whether you’re going after them for non-economic losses as well as economic ones. Economic losses might include things like doctor bills, repairs to the car, or lost wages, like we mentioned earlier. 

Non-economic losses may include money for things like pain and suffering. If the car accident hurt you, and you had to have surgery or go through physical therapy afterward, then you may feel like you should get money for that from the responsible driver. 

If they drove drunk or exceeded the speed limit by quite a bit when they hit you, then you might feel you’re more justified in trying to get money out of them in addition to the economic losses you suffered.  

Can You Find Physical Evidence to Prove Who Caused the Accident?

You also need to think about whether you can collect a sufficient amount of physical evidence that proves you caused the accident. Say that you’re in an at-fault state. The other driver or their insurance company won’t admit the other driver caused the wreck. 

That means, if you file a lawsuit, then you will probably only get the amount of money that you want if you can show the jury evidence that indicates you’re correct in your assessment of who’s responsible. You can give your testimony, but if the other driver says that something different happened, then it’s your word against theirs.

If you can show through pictures, video, the police car accident report, and similar forms of evidence that the other driver did, in fact, cause the accident, then you can probably force a settlement offer or get a jury’s verdict in your favor. If you can’t produce much in the way of physical evidence, then you may lose your lawsuit.

How Fast Do You Need the Money?

How urgently you need the money will also usually impact your car accident lawsuit. Say that you feel the other driver or their insurance company should pay you the money you need to cover your damages, whether economic, non-economic, or both. You’re trying to collect enough evidence that proves the other driver caused the accident. 

However, the other driver or their insurance company stalls. That’s a tactic that defendants in such lawsuits often use, particularly insurance companies. 

If you need that money very urgently because you’re paying for things like your medical bills and the cost to repair the car out of pocket, then you may feel compelled to take a smaller settlement amount rather than waiting for the trial process to play out. If you need that money as quickly as possible, then you may think you have no choice but to accept a lowball offer.