Knoxville Personal Injury Law Blog

The impact of an auto accident can have on someone can be tremendous and costly. Auto accident injuries occur on a large scale every day. An auto accident lawyer understands the complexities that auto accidents entail, including both legal and insurance matters. Determining who is at fault for an auto accident can be difficult due to the many factors an auto accident can involve.

Auto accident injuries occur on a large scale every day. An auto accident lawyer understands the complexities that auto accidents entail, including both legal and insurance matters. Determining who is at fault for an auto accident can be difficult due to the many factors an auto accident can involve.

Many people do not know about the mechanical failures as well as design defects uncovered by notorious cases such as those of the Toyota acceleration defect, Ford Pinto, Firestone tires, and SUV rollovers that have not gone away. Design flaws such as airbag failures and seatbelt, or the latest Ford truck faulty door latches are good examples of on going design issues in automobile accident cases. Vehicle design flaws can easily turn what could have been a fairly minor automobile accident into a disaster involving serious injury or death. A competent and skilled auto accident attorney will have the knowledge and extensive experience to determine if an injury was caused by the accident itself or a defect in the design of the car.

Many causes of car accident collisions are due to:

* drunk driving

* drowsiness

* negligence

* distractions

* cell phone misuse

* aggressive driving

* poor road conditions

* mechanical failure

* speeding

One major accident causing distraction from above is misuse of cell phones. Research studies show that the number of cell phone subscribers has grown from 94 million in the year 2000 to about 130 million today. It is therefore not hard to imagine how many of them use their cell phone while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that 85 percent of these cell phone subscribers talk on the phone while they are operating a car. It has also been estimated that 6 percent of automobile accidents per year are caused by drivers talking on their cell phone. This means that a total of 2,600 people will die in cell-phone related car accidents this year.

Around 98 percent of reported accidents involve a single distracted driver concentrating not on the road, but rather on one of the following Rubbernecking (16%), Driver Fatigue (12%), Surroundings (10%), Child/Passenger Distraction (9%), Adjusting Radio/CD (7%), Cell Phone (6%)If you have been involved in a car accident that was, in your opinion, caused by an inattentive driver using a cell phone, you need the experience and knowledge of our lawyers to investigate your case to the fullest.

Compensation

Depending on the extent and nature of injuries suffered in an automobile accident, victims may recover one or both of the following:

* Compensatory damages awarded to compensate the injured person for what they suffered in the accident, which includes lost wages, property damage, medical expenses, and pain and suffering from the actual injuries and how they interfere with the normal functions of life.

* Punitive damages awarded in addition to compensatory damages in various types of cases. Punitive awards are intended to punish motorists for especially reckless conduct or manufacturers for faulty automobile design

Motorists and passengers who escape severe injury following an car accident usually face challenges with insurance companies that turn into full scale legal fights. In instances of design flaws, auto companies have the means to employ teams of the best lawyers to defend them from lawsuits that occur from the tragic results of their negligence.

Don’t fall for the claims of attorneys promising fast cash and no hassles. A serious case involving severe injuries or death requires serious effort. If you need help with an automobile accident seek out the advice of a competent and skilled auto accident attorney.

James A.H. Bell is a skilled <a href=”http://www.jamesahbell.com/whitecollar.html”>Knoxville Criminal Defense Lawyer</a> , <a href=”http://www.dui-tn.com/blood-calc.html”>Tennessee DUI Attorney</a> and <a href=”http://www.bellcriminallaw.com/white-collar-crimes.html”>White Collar Crimes Defense Lawyer</a> with The Law Odffice of James A.H. Bell, P.C. located in Knoxville, TN

Personal Referrals

We consider that a personal recommendation is actually much better than any other advertisement. Speak with close friends, loved ones and neighbors to find out if they have employed a personal injury attorney theirselves or know of an individual who has done so. Take down the names and concentrate on individuals that have come up a lot more than once. Even though the main question you may want to ask is actually the amount of the settlement, the particular friend won’t be able to lawfully reveal this to you in the event that the case was settled without having a trial. The actual details is suspicious anyway simply because individuals usually exaggerate their final results.

Far better questions would likely consist of inquiries like:

* How often did you get case updates?
* How well were you prepped for depositions or other court appearances
* Did your personal injury lawyer answer your questions?
* Does the lawyer return phone calls?
* Did you understand the process thoroughly

Personal Injury Expertise is Key

When a professional medical physician is given a license to practice, that license is not limited to any specific area of practice. Aside from the hospitals policy, presently there is no law that inhibits an anesthesiologist from doing surgery. Thankfully, common sense and the concern of lawsuits protect against such crossover. Although the same common principle is applicable to an lawyer’s license to practice law, crossover – the temptation for a attorney with minimal expertise in a specific area of expertise to handle a case within that practice area is all too frequent.

One particular reason for why lawyers take a chance on venturing into unfamiliar area has to do with shareing fees Attorneys, as opposed to physicians, are not lawfully prohibited from fee sharing with colleagues who send clientele to them. In reality, attorneys regularly delegate cases which do not fall within their own specialty area. In the majority of instances, the actual referral is actually made with the client’s most desirable interests in mind, and without having any expectation of payment coming from the actual referring lawyer. The same can’t usually be said within the area of personal injury law.

In most states, attorneys who send cases to personal injury lawyers are paid a fee for rerfering a case, usually 1 3rd of the net legal fee recovered upon behalf of the client. For instance, if a attorney referred an auto accident case to a lawyer specializing in that area and the case resulted in a $100,000 settlment, the referring lawyer would be paid a $13,333.00 referral fee. For that reason, it is not hard to fully grasp the reason why a attorney could be enticed to take on a relatively simple auto accident case, instead of referring it to a lawyer with substantially more expertise in auto accident litigation. Regrettably, the attorney’s decision to retain the case usually comes at the client’s expense.

A Good Reputation

Even though a attorney’s prior trial experience needs to be a thing to consider whenever selecting a lawyer to handle your personal injury case, the particular quantity of trials previously taken on by one lawyer over yet another should certainly not end up being the decisive element in the selection procedure. In accordance to the latest research, just 2 % of all personal injury cases are resolved by trial. The remaining 98 % are settled either through settlement or dismissal. The scarcity of personal injury trials is due in large part to the simple fact that very good cases, where the defendant’s legal responsibility is actually likely to be established at trial are usually settled by insurance companies way before trial. As a result, the ability to acquire evidence of a defendant’s liability is actually among a trial lawyer’s most beneficial assets.

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