Personal Injury Lawyers in Athens

It is important to retain an experienced personal injury lawyer in Athens. Your attorney will collect the facts and investigate the circumstances of your injury to obtain the evidence to prove the at-fault party’s liability. The investigation will also uncover all parties who may be responsible. For instance, in an automobile accident, the vehicle’s manufacturer could share blame if there were a car defect. Your Athens personal injury lawyer will also help you document your economic and non-economic losses.

Most personal injury claims are resolved outside of court. Your lawyer will negotiate with the attorneys and insurance companies representing the at-fault parties, including representing you during mediation and advising you about settling or going to trial. Your attorney can also retain expert witnesses to explain how the accident happened, the likely treatments your injuries will require, and the effect of your injuries on your future job prospects. This information is needed to seek future damages like lost earning capacity.

Having an attorney is also critical to following the rules of civil procedure and court rules. You need a lawyer to help you conduct discovery, a process by which the parties request and exchange relevant information between them. Failure to follow any of these rules could jeopardize your case.

If someone else negligently caused you to suffer a personal injury, you may have the right to seek compensation from that party. More specifically, you must be able to prove the following elements:

• Duty of care: This means the responsible party must take reasonable steps to avoid causing foreseeable harm to others. For example, a driver owes others who use the road a duty to drive safely and follow traffic laws.
• Breach: A breach is the result of a negligent act or omission, such as a grocery store failing to mop up a spill on one of its aisles. This is often one of the most contested issues in a personal injury case.
• Causation: The victim must show that the at-fault party’s negligence caused the accident in question. Causation can be more complicated when multiple defendants are involved so having an attorney is vital.
• Damages: Victims generally have the right to compensation for the losses they have sustained, including non-economic losses such as pain and suffering. In some cases, victims can seek punitive damages (designed to punish particularly wrongful conduct).

Don’t wait too long to take action on your case. Most victims have only two years from the date of their accident to file a lawsuit or resolve their claim with the insurance company. This deadline is known as the statute of limitations.

The value of your case will depend on several factors such as how bad your injuries are, the medical treatments you need, the impact of your injuries on your ability to work, and others. We evaluate every client’s case individually and seek the compensation they deserve for their specific injuries.

Probably not. Most insurance companies are fairly easy to deal with in settling property damage claims. The fee a lawyer might charge you to handle your property damage claim would end up taking up too much of your property damage claim settlement to make it worthwhile.

Yes. A car that’s been in an accident is worth less than the exact same car that has not been in an accident. You’re entitled to recover for the “diminished value” of your car. The amount of “diminished value” you can recover is the difference in fair market value between your car before the collision and your car after the collision.

Here’s an example: Your car is worth $20,000. You get into an accident and your car is fully repaired. Because it’s been in an accident its value is now $19,000. You’re entitled to recover $1,000 in diminished value.

Because most people don’t know you’re entitled to recover for the diminished value of your car, most insurance companies don’t voluntarily offer to pay you for it. Be sure to do so when speaking with the insurance company about the damage to your car.

I’m sorry to hear this. Hopefully your insurance policy has what’s called “gap coverage,” which covers the “gap” between your property damage claim for your totaled car and the amount remaining on your car loan. If not, there’s nothing that you can do. However, you may be able to make up the difference through your personal injury claim.

Here’s an example to explain: You buy a car for $20,000. A year later your car is totaled in an accident. Its fair market value is determined to be $15,000, so the insurance company writes you a $15,000 check for the property damage. After using that $15,000 to pay off your car loan, you still owe $2,000 on your car loan. If you have “gap coverage,” you can use it to pay that $2,000.

Clients who have been hurt in accidents often ask us if they have a case even though they were partially at fault for their accident. Georgia’s comparative negligence law allows a person to recover for their injuries even if they were negligent as long as the jury decides they were less than 50% at fault for the accident.

Georgia law OCGA 51-12-33(a) states that where a person is injured in an accident but was partially at fault, the jury decides the percentage of the plaintiff’s fault for the accident. The judge then reduces the jury award to the plaintiff by the finding of fault. For example, if the jury returns a $500,000 verdict but finds the plaintiff 25% at fault, the jury verdict is reduced 25%, to $375,000.

Georgia law OCGA 51-12-33(g) states that if the jury finds the injured person 50% at fault or greater, they cannot recover. For example, if the jury returns a $250,000 verdict but finds the injured person and the defendant were each 50% responsible, the injured person cannot recover anything. However, if the jury returns a $250,000 verdict but finds the defendant 51% at fault and the injured person 49% at fault, the injured person can recover but the verdict is reduced 49%, to $127,500.

It is an unfair and harsh result that an injured person that’s 49% at fault can recover for their injuries while an injured person who is 50% at fault cannot.

Where there are multiple people responsible for an accident, Georgia law OCGA 51-12-33(b) requires that the jury decides the percentage of each person’s fault and that the jury verdict is apportioned among each person by the percentage of their fault.

Here are a couple of examples that show how this works:

The jury returns a $300,000 verdict and finds the plaintiff 20% at fault, defendant X 40% at fault and defendant Y 40% at fault. The jury verdict is reduced 20%, to $240,000, to reflect the plaintiff’s fault. Defendant X is responsible for 40% of the verdict, which is $120,000. Defendant Y is also responsible for 40% of the verdict, which is $120,000.

The jury returns a $500,000 verdict and finds the plaintiff 30% at fault, defendant X 50% at fault and defendant Y 20% at fault.The jury verdict is reduced 30%, to $350,000, to reflect the plaintiff’s fault. Defendant X is responsible for 50% of the verdict, which is $250,000. Defendant Y is responsible for 20% of the verdict, which is $100,000.