Philip Pendergrass is Lawrenceville’s Personal Injury Lawyer.

The statute of limitations for most personal injuries in Georgia is two years following the accident. This means that you have two years to file a personal injury lawsuit in the courts, but you must partner with an attorney much earlier. Your personal injury lawyer will use the time to build a case, investigate your damages, and handle settlement negotiations.

If you wait before contacting an attorney, they will have much less time to get a clear understanding of your injuries and damages and may need to file a lawsuit even if an out-of-court settlement is likely the best option for all parties.

There are exceptions to the two-year statute, particularly when injuries do not immediately appear. Still, if you even suspect that you have suffered an injury, we suggest you connect with our law firm immediately to get started with plenty of time.

You can absolutely handle your claim, but the reality is that insurers have been handling claims like yours for years and have developed playbooks for handling claims as quickly and cheaply as possible. Tort and injury law is complex, and a big part of these settlement tactics involves overwhelming a victim with legal documents and terms while making extremely low settlement offers and rejecting a victim’s counteroffers outright.

When you work with a Lawrenceville attorney, the insurers know that they are involved with someone who understands personal injury law, has handled a range of accidents, and is dedicated to getting fair compensation for their client. Unfortunately, initial negotiation talks often go smoother when carried out by an attorney, but this also means you will have more time and emotional space to focus on recovering from your injuries.

In addition to the monetary benefits of working with a personal injury lawyer, stress has a significant impact on the recovery process from physical injuries, and the claims process is often very stressful — especially for someone unfamiliar with it. Insurers know this and use this as leverage to convince a claimant to settle for a low offer and move forward with their lives. Your attorney will not settle a case to get it over with and will do what it takes to get you the money you deserve, whether through direct negotiations or in front of a judge and jury.

There are no clear statistics about how many personal injury claims are settled without going to court. However, many estimates put the number above 50% settled out of court and upwards of 95% of all cases resolved before trial. These numbers are difficult to gather because many settlements are done to avoid any publicly available record of the compensation amount or other details about the accident. These settlements are not reported to a central authority, meaning that the settlement rate is speculative.

However, the fact remains that most personal injury cases are resolved before a trial. Whether or not your situation follows the trends is to be determined, though, and there are some injuries that an attorney may deem deserving of litigation without exhaustive negotiations. This is common in instances where your situation may warrant punitive damages, which are only awarded by a judge or jury at the trial resolution.

Punitive damages are added to compensatory damages and are intended to serve as a punishment to the defendant.

Like most general answers about personal injuries, it depends. Some cases are extremely straightforward and can lead to a settlement agreement in a matter of months, while others may be drawn out over a few years and can be contentious and complex. If your case goes to court, this will naturally extend the time necessary to reach a settlement agreement because the case will then be moving at the speed of the courts.

Even as we are working on a Gwinnett County personal injury case, it can be difficult to determine whether or not we are closing in on an agreement. We make sure to keep our clients informed about every development and can generally give a sense of what to expect as our conversations proceed with the at-fault party’s representation.

The Georgia Code uses a legal tool known as comparative negligence when assigning liability for personal injuries. It allows a victim to recover damages proportional to the amount that they are responsible for the accident. For example, if you accept 25% fault for a car accident, your final settlement will be reduced by this amount.

Comparative negligence is a beneficial law, considering that the alternative would block victims from compensation even if they were 1% responsible. But insurers use this tool to their advantage by attempting to pin additional blame on a victim to lower their financial obligations. An experienced attorney will push back on these unfair tactics and will only accept fault that you rightfully deserve to be held liable for.

Insurers count on victims to tire of going back and forth about “minor” details, such as a quarter of a percent of fault, but these seemingly insignificant cuts add up. You do not deserve to take on the financial burden of someone else’s dangerous or reckless behavior.

Accidental injuries are one of the most common causes of injuries in the U.S., and automobile accidents are among the most common causes. Even in non-fatal car collisions, accident victims often suffer serious bodily harm, such as traumatic brain injury, back injuries, loss of limbs, severe burns, etc.

To determine how much money you deserve after a car accident, product liability injury, or any other personal injury accident, you will need to sit down with a Lawrenceville lawyer and go through the details of your situation. The basis for your damages is predominantly things like your medical bills and lost wages, each highly dependent on your unique situation.

From there, your lawyer will need to determine the non-economic damages you have suffered, using a number of tools at their disposal.

After your initial consultation, you will have a better idea of what your case may be worth, but your attorney will spend a substantial amount of time at the outset of your work together investigating each possible damage before reaching a final calculation. However, even this final calculation will not likely reflect your actual final settlement for various reasons.