Car Accidents

After a car crash that causes serious injuries, you may be concerned about paying your medical bills and taking the time that you need to recover and rehabilitate. Often, people do not have enough saved in case of significant injuries or disabilities. If you sustained injuries in a car accident that someone else caused, you should discuss the matter with the Orange County car accident lawyers at the Serendib Law Firm.

Car accidents range from minor to devastating. Serious injuries produced in these accidents may necessitate emergency medical care, along with follow-up care and rehabilitation. They can affect an accident victim’s relationships with others and even his or her ability to work again. It is important to call the police to the scene if you can and to retain an attorney soon after the accident. Over time, evidence vanishes, and witnesses’ memories fade. While injuries may not seem to be serious initially, they can reveal themselves to be serious over the course of the first year after the accident.

You may be able to obtain damages arising out of your injuries by bringing a personal injury lawsuit in civil court. In most cases, you will need to show the other driver’s negligence. This means that you will need to show that it is more likely than not that the defendant owed you a duty of reasonable care, and the defendant deviated from the duty to use reasonable care, as well as causation and damages. Drivers can breach the duty to use reasonable care in many ways, including by drunk driving, tailgating, speeding, failing to check blind spots, failing to obey signs and signals, or driving aggressively. A car accident attorney in Orange County can investigate the specific events that led to your accident.

Often, insurers for an at-fault driver will raise comparative negligence as a defense. They may try to use what you did or said against you to show that you were partially or fully to blame for the car accident. Under the doctrine of comparative negligence, the jury must decide the total damages and evaluate the evidence and arguments to assign a percentage of fault to both the plaintiff and the defendant. Your damages will be lowered by an amount equal to your percentage of fault, if any. For example, if the total damages are $500,000, and you are 30% responsible for the car accident, you can recover $350,000 from the other driver.

If we can establish liability, we likely will be able to recover damages on your behalf. Economic losses that you may be able to recover include lost wages, medical bills, and replacement services. Your non-economic losses may include mental anguish, loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering, and disfigurement. The amount of non-economic damages can vary greatly, depending on the nature of the injuries and the personal traits of the plaintiff. A skilled Orange County car accident attorney will know how to present a victim’s case in the most favorable possible light.

In some situations, multiple drivers or other parties share responsibility for a car accident. In complicated cases, it may be important to retain an accident reconstruction expert to evaluate the scene of the accident and other evidence to determine all the parties responsible for the harm and evaluate each party’s percentage of responsibility for the accident. California follows a modified version of joint and several liability. Under the traditional joint and several liability rule, any party that was at least somewhat responsible for an accident could be held responsible for the entirety of the damages owed by all defendants. Under California’s rule, any one party may be held responsible for the total economic damages, but each party can be held accountable only for its own percentage of fault regarding non-economic damages.

If you sustained injuries in a car accident caused by someone else, you should discuss what happened with the trial attorneys at the Serendib Law Firm. We represent victims in Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties. Contact our firm at 1-800-LAW-8825 (800-529-8825) or through our online form for a consultation with a car accident lawyer in Orange County.