San Antonio Auto Accident Attorney

How to Know When You’ll Need the Help of a San Antonio Auto Accident Attorney

• Your Legal Duty to Other Drivers
• Damages in Car Accident Case
• Going Against the Insurance Companies
• Seeking Medical Attention ASAP
• Reasons to Hire an Accident Attorney

While many car wrecks in San Antonio often result in property damage only, there are hundreds that occur over the course of a year that result in someone experiencing a personal injury.

While a vast majority of fender-benders do not require the need for legal representation, the particular challenges that can arise when a person has been injured in a car crash can often merit the need for an experienced San Antonio auto accident attorney. However, many people who have suffered an injury due to an auto accident in Texas aren’t fully aware of their legal rights, or of the challenges that they’re likely to face in seeking compensation for their injury. San Antonio auto accident attorney Michael Grossman, with two decades of experience in helping injured victims just like you, can assist you toward receiving proper compensation for your injury. The following article provides further information on the legal ramifications of a car collision in Texas and what an injured victim can do in order to pursue compensation that may be able to help them with incurred costs like medical bills and lost wages.

Texas Drivers’ Legal Duty to Other Drivers

In Texas, every driver owes a legal duty for public safety to every other driver on the road. This legal duty means that a driver must take reasonable steps while driving in order to ensure public safety. A legal duty must be shown to have existed between a plaintiff and a defendant before a personal injury auto accident lawsuit can be pursued. However, in the vast majority of auto accident cases in Texas, the legal duty owed is that of public safety. When that legal duty is violated, for instance, when one car crashes into another car, then an aggrieved party can pursue legal action against the liable party or parties through a personal injury lawsuit. Determining whether or not a violation has occurred is an integral part to any civil suit. Since a legal duty and its violation are intricately connected to the circumstances and relationships involved in an accident, proving a violation can sometimes be challenging. However, certain questions can be used in order to assess if a legal duty was owed and subsequently violated in regards to an auto accident in San Antonio, TX:

• Was it reasonable for the driver to run through a red light?
• Was it reasonable for the driver to drive while drunk?
• Was it reasonable for the driver to be driving in a reckless manner?

In most instances, such questions are easily answered, often resulting in a liable driver not acting reasonably in some way. However, legal issues are not always black-and-white. When circumstances contribute to auto accidents that involve multiple parties, ascertaining the legal duties owed and how each legal duty may have been violated can be a challenging process. As such, an injured victim will often require the help of an experienced San Antonio auto accident attorney in order to help prove the legal duty and how such a legal duty was violated by the liable party or parties.

It should also be noted that Texas personal injury law does not require a liable party to compensate an injured victim. It only requires a liable party to do so if they are compelled to through a civil lawsuit. In other words, it is the responsibility of the injured victim to initiate legal proceedings if they ever hope to secure fair compensation for their injury. While such an injured victim may sometimes receive a settlement offer from an insurance company, such an offer is often a low-ball number that has been shrewdly calculated to entice an injured victim to settle early for less instead of later for more. Such a settlement is often offered early on in the aftermath of an accident in exchange for the injured victim signing over their rights to pursue further legal action. Once that type of settlement has been agreed to, there is little than an attorney can do to rectify the situation. If you’ve been injured in a San Antonio car wreck, enlisting the help of a knowledgeable auto accident attorney is often a beneficial first step. We can help make sure that an insurance company is not going to take advantage of you by offering you a low-ball settlement figure.

Gathering Evidence to Prove Cause in San Antonio Car Wrecks

Proving that another party was responsible for your injury cannot solely rely on your version of events. Relevant evidence must be obtained from an accident site that works to tell the events as they really happened. When hired, our experienced investigative team will work to procure surveillance video or photos, eyewitness testimony, data from data-logging equipment, measurements taken from the scene of the accident, and a host of other forensics data that can help a judge or jury receive a clear and full account of the accident as it actually happened. In order to prove causation, i.e. that a party was part of the chain of events that led to or caused your accident, relevant evidence must be located that implicates each unique defendant. Often, non-attorneys and lesser-experienced law firms fail to have the investigative resources that an experienced San Antonio auto accident attorney will have. In other words, we can help you build a strong case against the parties responsible for your injury.

Damages in San Antonio Car Wreck Accident Cases

In the legal realm, damages does not refer to the actual injury sustained in a car wreck. Instead, damages refers to the financial losses that accompany such an injury. For example, damages refers to the medical bills that can accompany a shattered femur, but does not refer to the broken leg itself. A legitimate personal injury auto accident lawsuit must have a victim that has incurred some type of damages as a result of the car collision. Since the stated purpose of a personal injury lawsuit is for the injured victim to be compensated for their incurred damages, a personal injury lawsuit involving a victim without damages would be pointless.

However, like proving causation, a plaintiff’s legal representation must be able to prove why certain damages are being asked for within the personal injury lawsuit. Damages can include compensation for medical bills, lost wages because of time off from work, lost earning capacity if an injured victim is unable to return to work, pain and suffering, or other types of personal injury damages. With two decades of experience in Texas personal injury law, San Antonio auto accident attorney Michael Grossman is capable of proving up damages so that you can stand to receive fair compensation for your injury.

Going Against Car Insurance Companies After a Car Wreck

As previously stated, car wrecks that result in only property damage are often able to be handled by two reasonable people without the aid of a legal professional. Furthermore, the rules and regulations set in place for auto insurers are such that they process for obtaining fair compensation for your damaged car is relatively straightforward. While the process itself can be mildly frustrating, it’s likely that you’ve experienced such a process before and you were likely able to have your car repaired or replaced within a reasonable amount of time. However, it’s this apparent ease of dealing with auto insurers after a fender-bender that leads some people to believe that the process for seeking compensation following an auto accident causing injury may be just as straight-forward. More often than not, this is seldom the case. Since the amount of damages that an insurance company may be ultimately responsible for in the aftermath of an accident causing injury is often much greater than accidents involving only property damage, they may appear to become a different type of auto insurer - one that is likely less inclined to award your proper compensation out of fear that their company’s bottom-line may be severely affected. They will attempt various methods in order to cast blame back onto the victim, or onto any other entity involved in the wreck other than their client. In so doing, they are working to have the personal injury claim severely diminished or completely denied. With so much experience behind them, especially in regards to the larger insurance companies in the country, they are well-versed in ways to see claims denied. Without proper legal help, you may not be able to withstand their tactics. However, San Antonio auto accident attorney Michael Grossman has gone against nearly every major insurer in the country. We’re familiar with their ways, and they’re often familiar with our firm. Consequently, we will work to ensure that you’re not being taken advantage of by an insurance company that may be more concerned with their financial health than with your physical well-being.

Injured by an Uninsured Motorist in San Antonio?

If you’ve suffered an injury due to a collision with an uninsured motorist in San Antonio (and you don’t have uninsured/under-insured protection on your own insurance policy), such a liable driver may not be able to award you possible compensation. The issue of financial ability, known as solvency, is central to the ability of a personal injury lawsuit to be brought against a liable party. If a liable party has no financial resources at their disposal, an aggrieved party cannot hope to be awarded compensation, regardless of the guilt of the liable party. However, our San Antonio car wreck law firm can investigate your accident in order to determine if other parties may have been involved in the wreck - other parties who may have insurance or other financial resources. Additionally, some defendants or their defense attorneys may attempt to claim insolvency in the hopes that a plaintiff’s attorney will not call them on their bluff. Since these attorneys know that insolvency is a cause for dismissal of a personal injury auto accident case, they may attempt to disguise their client’s financial means. We make sure to conduct an asset check on any defendant prior to pursuing a suit. Often, we’re able to locate otherwise “missing” money so that our clients can stand a fair opportunity to seek compensation for their injury.

Seek Medical Attention ASAP Following a Car Wreck

For various reasons, a person injured in a car wreck in San Antonio may not seek out medical attention following an auto accident. However, if you desire to seek compensation for your injury, it’s vital toward your possible personal injury case that you seek proper medical attention within a reasonable amount of time after the accident has occurred. Victims in Texas have a legal duty to mitigate damages. This means that they cannot allow a sustained injury to worsen over time due to lack of medical attention. For example, suppose that a passenger in a car suffers a severe laceration to their forearm. Thinking it just to be a flesh wound, they fail to seek medical attention after the accident. The injury gets progressively worse until the injured victim is in dire need of medical help. Once at a hospital, the laceration is noted to have become infected and the arm must be amputated. Such a victim would then not be allowed to seek damages against a liable party for the amputation since the victim did not take reasonable steps following the accident to seek out medical attention. Should you not have health insurance or should other financial factors prevent you from seeking proper medical help, contact our law offices. We can assist you in locating medical attention that will take your financial means into consideration. While such medical help is important toward the outcome of a possible personal injury lawsuit, it is more important toward your own physical health. In many auto accidents, injuries may not be readily apparent, or may even be soft tissue injuries that could cause further problems if not correctly diagnosed following an accident.

Reasons to Hire a San Antonio Auto Accident Attorney

Listed below are a number of reasons for an injured victim to hire an experienced San Antonio auto accident attorney like Michael Grossman. Essentially, we can help protect your rights and work to ensure that you’re not being taken advantage of by a person or insurance company that likely has only their best interests in mind.

• A driver may be uncooperative in the immediate aftermath of a car wreck in San Antonio. They may fail to provide you with their insurance information or their contact details. They may try to suggest that contacting the police isn’t necessary or would take up their time. Often, these individuals have likely been involved in similar events before, so they know what to expect, and they simply do not want to face the repercussions of causing an accident resulting in injury. We can help make sure that such a driver is held accountable for their actions.
• You may not be able to afford medical help. As previously stated, we can help you locate medical attention that will take your circumstances into consideration. Furthermore, it should be noted that compensation for medical bills can be awarded through the successful outcome of a personal injury lawsuit.
• An insurance company may attempt to pressure you in a wide variety of ways. They may attempt to get you to admit to fault in some way by repeatedly asking you the same question in a slightly different way. Often, they are trying to poke holes into your story in the hopes that you’ll inadvertently admit to some or all of the blame for an auto accident.
• As previously stated, an insurance company may offer you a low-ball settlement. Without the knowledgeable eyes of an experienced legal professional looking over such an agreement, you may be settling for a compensation amount that is far less than commensurate with your actual amount of incurred damages.
• An insurance company may drag their feet in providing you with a rental car. This can sometimes be indicative of the insurer conducting an investigation “behind-the-scenes” on your car, meaning that you may soon be facing a legal fight.
• Some insurance companies will offer to pay your medical bills as long as you submit them to the insurance company, but, upon providing such invoices, you’re never reimbursed.
• Insurance companies may also tell an injured victim that the compensation that the insurance company is offering is all that an injured victim can hope to receive. Often, this is just another ploy to entice an injured victim to accept a settlement early on so that an aggrieved party will not pursue legal action.
• Lastly, your intuition regarding a situation is often trustworthy. If you feel that a liable driver, another liable party, or an insurance company is not treating you correctly or being upfront with you, you have the right to seek legal help that can ensure you’re being treated correctly.

If any of the above-mentioned issues have occurred in the course of your auto accident situation, you may be able to benefit from the help of an experienced San Antonio auto accident attorney like Michael Grossman. With two decades of experience in litigating auto accidents in Texas, Michael Grossman is ready to take on even the most aggressive of insurance companies in defense of his clients’ rights.

Contact the Houston Auto Accident Attorneys at Grossman Law Offices

When hired to help you through a difficult time, we will work as hard as possible so that you can focus on recovering from your accident. We will:

• Perform the necessary paperwork associated with a personal injury lawsuit.
• Become the only entity that deals with the insurer so that you don’t have to.
• Scour an accident site for evidence in order to build a strong case on your behalf.
• File claims on your behalf connected to medical bills and property damage bills.
• Prepare a demand packet and send it to an insurer so that you don’t have to wait for compensation for medical bills or property damage costs.
• Help you locate medical care that will take your financial means into consideration.
• Ensure that you’re fairly compensated for your injury, and that an insurer isn’t allowed to get away with a low-ball offer.
• Identify and file suit against all liable parties so that each party can be held accountable for their negligence.
• Mediate claims so that a fair out-of-court settlement may be reached, meaning that you might not have to enter a courtroom.
• Strongly defend your interests in a courtroom setting, should your personal injury lawsuit require a trial.

In other words, we will help you in any way that we can. If you’ve been injured in an auto accident in San Antonio, Texas, contact San Antonio auto accident attorney Michael Grossman and his team at Grossman Law Offices toll-free at 1-855-393-0000. We offer free legal consultations where you can ask any questions you may still have after reading this article. We’ll also apprise you of your possible legal options. We want to help you toward a better tomorrow. Start the recovery process today and give us a call.