San Antonio Auto Accident Attorney

San Antonio Injury Accident Attorney Michael Grossman on Car Wrecks in San Antonio

You may already know that being in a car accident can be a traumatic and disorienting experience. Whether it’s a minor fender bender that ultimately impacts your schedule and finances in a minor way, a very serious accident resulting in major injury to you and a total loss of your car, or a fatal accident causing the loss of a loved one, these accidents are something few people are prepared to face financially, emotionally, or physically.

Yet, with the increasing numbers of vehicles on the roads in Texas, all of them in a hurry to reach their destinations, accidents occur more and more frequently. Even if you are a very careful driver, just one reckless driver crossing your path can cause you to be in an accident. You can then face a number of hurdles in getting your life back on track, including repair of your vehicle, recovering from injuries, pushy insurance adjusters who want to badger you into an inadequate settlement, uncooperative parties to the accident, and a variety of other problems facing you when you are likely not in the best condition to handle additional challenges.

Do I Need an Attorney Following a San Antonio Auto Accident?

If you have already experienced a minor “fender bender” type accident, you may feel confident in facing the aftermath of such an accident. In a fender bender with a cooperative and insured defendant and only minimal property damage to your vehicle, you can usually get through the process yourself with only minor stress and inconvenience. You call the police to document the accident, get the defendant’s insurance information, and go from there. You can usually get your own insurance company to cover towing and a rental vehicle and get reimbursed by the defendant’s company. Ideally, you can get the defendant’s insurance company to take care of all of this up front. But circumstances surrounding accidents are rarely ideal. If life were ideal, you wouldn’t have had the accident in the first place. Especially in more complicated accidents, such as where there are multiple parties involved, where one or more of those parties is uncooperative, or you have been injured, you can quickly find things spiraling out of control as expenses mount and insurance adjusters stonewall you while trying to avoid paying out for your incurred expenses.

Dealing with an Insurance Company After a Car Crash in San Antonio, TX

You should never let yourself be lulled into complacency by a seemingly friendly or helpful insurance adjuster from an opposing party’s side of the matter. Insurance is a bottom-line business out for profit. Just keep in mind that the insurance industry is not really there to help you; like any other business, its real purpose is to help itself and its owners and shareholders by making money. So, it is natural that in any claim, the insurance company will be looking for ways to minimize claims and payouts or to avoid them altogether if possible. One perfectly legitimate way that they can do this is by establishing that you were the one at fault for the accident.

They will try to show, to the extent that they can, that you were at least somewhat responsible for causing the accident. In fact, they would prefer to show that you were at least 50% responsible for the accident, perhaps because you were texting, distracted by conversing with others in your vehicle, focusing on changing the radio station or CD in your car, or other such things. Therefore, you should never make statements or admissions of any kind to the other party’s insurance representative because such statements can (and likely will) be held against you. Experienced insurance defense attorneys have many ways of characterizing your own statements to make you look much more responsible for an accident than you actually were. Don’t speak to the insurance company about the circumstances of an accident, the extent of your injuries, or anything else, without first obtaining the advice of your own San Antonio auto accident attorney.

The Essentials of Texas Auto Accident Personal Injury Law

First, let’s look at the basic elements of a Texas car accident case to help you understand when and why you may need a personal injury attorney. To have a case against the other party or parties to the accident, you will need to be able to prove that the accident was their fault. This means that you will need to show that they had a duty to you. This can be as simple as the normal duty of one driver to another to take reasonable care so that their own actions will not result in harm or danger to the other driver or their vehicle, i.e. the duty to drive safely. Then you will need to prove that the other party breached that duty, i.e. they drove too fast, ran a red light, took a reckless turn, drove under the influence, took their attention from the road to text, or any number of other things that would cause danger or harm to others.

Then you will need to prove that that breach was the proximate cause of your injury or vehicle damage. This means that, if the breach had not occurred, you would not have suffered an injury or property damage. You also have to prove that you have actual damages, i.e. financial losses. Actual damages can range from something very simple and minor like scratched car paint and broken taillights to something serious and extensive like medical bills and long-term care resulting from injuries due to the accident. And, take note, the law places the burden of proof on you, the plaintiff, in a civil case for damages. Failing to prove any one of the above-mentioned elements can result in dismissal of your case, leaving you without means to help you past your accident. As you can probably already guess, it can be very difficult to prove some of these elements of your case. If the other party was texting, how do you acquire or preserve evidence of that? If they were under the influence, but no test is taken at the time of the accident for the influences in their system, how do you prove this later? Without cameras or credible witnesses, how will you prove excessive speed or reckless driving?

You may also need to show that you were less than 50% at fault for the accident. The opposing party’s attorney will try to shift the responsibility for the accident onto you if they can. That’s part of their job. Just as your attorney advocates for you, the defendant’s attorney must advocate for him or her. If your case ends up in court, you will also need to follow complicated filing procedures and deadlines, make sure you file before the statute of limitations on your type of case runs out, and face the complications of joint and several liability in Texas. Yes, this all even sounds complicated, but the true complexities of your accident case can only be faced with the aid of an experienced legal team. Missing even one filing deadline, failing to follow proper filing and court procedures, or missing even one slight element of your burden of proof for the accident can result in dismissal of your case. Therefore, you want to be prepared with an able San Antonio auto accident attorney on your side to guide you through this process.

What Can Your San Antonio Auto Accident Law Firm Do For Me?

The complications mentioned above are all common challenges that you can face. An experienced San Antonio car wreck lawyer will be familiar with all of these challenges and how to combat them. When our accident lawyers at Grossman Law Offices take on your case, they will do a complete investigation of the accident, including taking photographs and measurements at the scene of the accident, interviewing witnesses to the accident, obtaining a copy of the police report, and preserving this evidence and the records of the accident as best we can in order to ensure that it will all hold up in court. As you can see, it is almost always to your advantage to call the police right away to respond to the scene of the accident, and to get your own San Antonio personal injury lawyer on the case as soon as possible to make sure that every angle of the case is covered, that all the necessary tests, measurements and interviews are taken, and that evidence of all of this is properly preserved for you. In the occasional case of a very minor fender bender with a cooperative (and insured) party to the accident, you may be able to take care of things on your own. But even in such cases, where it may appear there is no damage other than a ding in the fender, you should be aware that some injuries take a while to appear. Whiplash injuries, for instance, can take several weeks to manifest themselves, and slight fractures and pulled muscles or ligaments may also not be immediately apparent, but when untreated, can become hideously painful later. Such issues can result in significant financial losses as some point in the future. Victims suffering from these types of future financial losses may benefit from the help of a San Antonio auto accident attorney.

Signs You May Need an Auto Accident Attorney in San Antonio, Texas

You are feeling new pains and aches following your injury. - You may be feeling some slight or unusual pain after your accident, but not be able to tell quite what is causing it. This can be a sign that you were injured in the accident, but you may have a type of injury that sometimes takes a while to fully appear. Whiplash, for example, can take days or weeks to appear, but once it does, it will cause severe discomfort and restrict your range of motion. Untreated, it may only get worse. So you should be sure, in the case of odd aches and pains following an accident, to be sure you have an attorney to help you preserve your case if these pains should take a turn for the worse.

You’re offered a less-than-adequate settlement amount from an insurance company. - You also want to make sure you don’t accept a small settlement that doesn’t account for your injuries. Once you have accepted an inadequate or unfair accident settlement, the law generally will not help you undo that settlement. You’re stuck with it. An experienced car accident attorney in San Antonio can help you know the true valuation of your claim or case. Most of all, you should make sure to seek medical treatment as soon as possible to help you recover as best you can from your injuries. An experienced San Antonio auto accident lawyer is usually acquainted with the local network of healthcare practitioners and can help put you in touch with a medical professional who can help you and take your circumstances into consideration.

One or more of the other parties to the accident is being uncooperative. - It is not unusual for parties who were driving irresponsibly in the first place to not want to accept responsibility for the results of their actions. They may not want to provide you with contact or insurance information, and they may try to get you not to call the police following an accident. They may also try to hide their assets so that you cannot recover from them on your claims. However, you don’t want to let those who caused your damages weasel out of their fair share of the compensation you are owed for your damages. San Antonio auto accident attorney Michael Grossman can help you discover information regarding their insurer(s), the assets they may be hiding that can help compensate you, and help you bring them to justice.

The other party to the accident does not have insurance. - In any case for damages, you need a solvent defendant in order to recover any compensation whatsoever. However, just because the defendant says they don’t have insurance does not necessarily make their statement true. They just may not want an insurer to know about an accident because their rates will go up and their assets will be in danger. There may also be other responsible parties to the accident who are insured. Let your San Antonio injury accident lawyer help you find out the truth of the matter so that you may be able to recover just compensation for your car accident.

An insurance company is pressuring you to quickly settle your claim. - Insurance adjusters may be trying to get you to give statements (recorded or otherwise) about the accident. Note: don’t give a statement without your attorney present, even if you feel nothing you say will work against you, because anything you say can be later used against you. (Insurance defense lawyers are past masters at twisting your words. It’s almost a necessary job skill for their field.) What may seem an innocent statement to you may be able to be presented in a negative light by clever insurance adjusters and opposing attorneys to make it seem like you were the one responsible for your injuries and accident. The insurance company may also be pressuring you to accept a settlement quickly, perhaps in exchange for not filing a lawsuit. Even if the settlement may seem generous to you at the time, you can be pretty sure that it is not. Insurance companies are businesses. Ultimately, their only concern is their bottom line. They want to make a profit and save whatever monies they can by not paying out claims where they can avoid it. Whatever you are offered is likely to be less than what you can fairly obtain with the aid of an experienced personal injury lawyer in San Antonio.

Some of the clever ways in which insurance companies try to avoid paying out in these matters is by:

• Offering you compensation less than the amount still owed on your totaled car.
• Not offering you a rental car to use while your vehicle is being repaired.
• Trying to settle before the full extent of your injuries and future medical care expenses is known.
• Saying up front that they’ll pay or reimburse you for your medical or car repair bills, then later refusing to do so.
• Insisting that they are limited in what they can offer you as a settlement.

Remember, once you settle, it is legally binding on you. You can’t go back and then get a larger settlement, even if your first agreement to settle turns out to be unfair. So don’t limit yourself. Have a San Antonio injury accident attorney help you. Grossman Law Offices has seen the full range of insurance company tricks during our 20 years of practice and we know how to handle them for you as well.

You don’t have the money to see a doctor about your injuries or you can’t afford the medical expenses associated with your accident. - It is vitally important to your health to see a doctor and receive treatment right away after you have been injured. Putting things off can often result in medical complications or more permanent injury. We understand that some San Antonio residents don’t have health insurance, can’t afford the deductibles, aren’t sure whether insurance will cover their injuries, or just don’t feel comfortable taking time off from work to see a doctor. Grossman Law Offices has been handling personal injury cases for two decades; we work with a large network of healthcare providers who can help you receive the treatment you need at little or no cost to you. You may also be entitled to reimbursement for your medical expenses from the other party or parties to the accident. In any event, we can help you find a doctor who will work with you under your circumstances to make sure you receive the treatment you need.

You just plain don’t feel right about how your claim is being handled. - Sometimes you should just trust your instincts. If you don’t feel right about how the other parties to the accident are acting, or if you feel the insurance adjusters are pressuring you unfairly, you may just be right. After all, the defendants and the insurance companies are not on your side, even if they pretend to be. It is not to their advantage to help you. Your San Antonio auto accident attorney is the one who will advocate for you and stand up for your rights to make sure that you receive fair compensation.

Let Our San Antonio Auto Accident Lawyers Help You Obtain Fair Compensation for Your Injury Accident

While nothing can ever undo the unfairness of experiencing the wreck itself, a good attorney can at least help you to seek everything to which you’re entitled in order to help you recover from that traumatic event. Your case is important. The consequences of the accident may affect you for the rest of your life. Whether it’s a disabling injury, the loss of a loved one, or even the trauma of your first serious accident, these are all life-changing events that are not to be taken lightly.

You want to make sure you receive all of the compensation to which you are entitled in order to build a strong foundation for getting back on your feet and moving forward with your life. You might want to contact two or three attorneys before making your final selection. Often, experienced and confident attorneys will offer free consultations to help you understand the basics of your case and allow you to make an informed choice about your counsel. During the consultation, you can ask the lawyer about how much experience he or she has handling cases like yours and their track record in obtaining favorable verdicts and settlements for their clients. You can also inquire about the elements of your own, personal case in regards to its strengths, weaknesses, and foreseeable challenges. You might even be able to get a client reference from them who had a case similar to yours.

Grossman Law Offices has handled personal injury accident cases in San Antonio and throughout Texas for more than 20 years. We have in-depth knowledge of insurance company policies and tricks related to accidents, court filing procedures, and the elements of proof for accident cases, as well as extensive experience throughout Texas in these matters. When we take on your case and advocate for your rights and compensation relating to an accident, we will help and advise you in every step of your case, from investigating the cause(s) of your accident to guiding your case through the San Antonio courts if need be. We will make sure you have the help you need every step of the way.

Some of the ways our experience can help you is by

• Finding the true causes of and parties to the accident.
• Making sure that all responsible parties are sued and held accountable for your damages.
• Calculating the full extent of your damages, including future medical care expenses.
• Presenting demands for those damages to the responsible parties before your bills become due.
• Handling contacts with the insurance companies to make sure they don’t get away with minimizing your case or compensation.
• Dealing with all paperwork and phone contact necessary for your case so that you can focus on getting your life back on track.
• Helping you to get any medical attention you may need with affordable healthcare providers.
• Submitting all bills and claims for you to the insurance companies or other responsible payers.
• Handling all court procedures, filing deadlines, motions and responses.
• Shepherding your case through court for you, if it comes to that.

With more than 20 years of exemplary success investigating and litigating Texas personal injury and accident cases, Grossman Law Offices has acquired a top-tier reputation as hard-hitting attorneys that win for their clients. You shouldn’t underestimate the singular value of this reputation. We have dealt with nearly every major insurance provider (and most of the minor ones) in a number of high profile cases, and they know the strength of our advocacy. Insurance companies fear going to court against adept, experienced accident attorneys. They would prefer to settle out of court to minimize any damage to their own and their clients’ reputations. Our track record of successful settlements can help influence the insurance companies to cooperate with you and settle in a favorable amount for your case. Don’t let insurance companies or uncooperative defendants browbeat you into accepting an unfair or inadequate settlement for your damages. Let us help you seek all the compensation you’re owed for your injuries.

If you or a loved one have been affected by an accident, and you have questions about your case, or would like to learn more about how we can help you obtain the compensation you deserve, contact one of our San Antonio auto accident attorneys toll-free at 1-855-393-0000. At Grossman Law Offices, we are available to answer your questions and help you understand your case whenever you may need us, 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Let us help you help yourself get back on track.