Are you suffering from whiplash in the aftermath of a collision? Sweet James can take legal action on your behalf and pursue compensation from the at-fault party. It all starts with contacting our Newport Beach whiplash lawyers.
As attorneys who have experience helping injury victims for over 25 years, we’ve taken more than 500 cases to trial. Our California whiplash lawyers will investigate the accident, collect relevant evidence, and advocate for your rights throughout the entire process.
Whiplash Claims Can Involve More Than Just Neck Pain
After a crash, it can be tempting to think of whiplash as something that will go away on its own. Sometimes, it does, but other times, symptoms continue. When that’s the case, it’s common for a whiplash victim to have trouble with these daily activities:
- Work
- Sleep
- Transportation
- Exercise
- Family responsibilities
- Other everyday tasks
From a legal standpoint, this is what a personal injury claim focuses on:
- What caused your injury
- Who was responsible
- Which losses were caused by the accident
A Newport Beach whiplash attorney can investigate the collision and build your claim around the evidence. That could involve reviewing the crash report, photographs, vehicle damage, witness accounts, medical records, insurance information, and other documents.
Your whiplash injury lawyer can also document both the financial and personal effects of your injury. For instance, let’s say you have missed work, received medical bills, experienced ongoing pain, or had to change how you handle ordinary responsibilities.
In that case, your Newport Beach whiplash injury lawyer can explain how these consequences are relevant to your claim.
Insurance Companies Can Challenge Whiplash Claims
One of the difficult parts of a whiplash claim is that insurance adjusters often try to minimize how much money they have to pay you. These are a couple of arguments commonly introduced by insurers:
- The collision was too minor to cause a major injury.
- Your symptoms were caused by another source.
These arguments can affect your settlement negotiations, but your Newport Beach personal injury lawyer from Sweet James will know how to respond. We can start by presenting the evidence regarding the crash that left you injured.
Your whiplash attorney serving Newport Beach can also handle communications with the insurer. Instead of responding to requests or negotiations, you can have your legal counsel communicate on your behalf.
Your Newport Beach whiplash accident lawyer can also determine which information is relevant to the claim. Many personal injury claims are resolved through negotiations. However, if your attorney can’t reach a fair agreement with the insurance company, they can explore the idea of litigation.
Liability Depends on How the Accident Happened
California personal injury laws give you the opportunity to seek compensation when another party’s negligence caused your injuries. In a typical car accident claim, that means your attorney will focus on establishing that these points are true:
- The other driver failed to use reasonable care.
- Their failure caused your injuries.
It’s also important for your Newport Beach whiplash injury attorney to understand the circumstances of the crash. There are many ways an accident can happen, such as:
- Following too closely
- Speeding
- Driving while distracted
- Failing to yield
- Violating other traffic rules
Your Newport Beach whiplash car accident lawyer can examine the available evidence to identify the exact cause.
With that in mind, California also follows a comparative fault system. If an injured person is found partly responsible for an accident, that doesn’t mean they will automatically be prevented from recovering compensation. Instead, their damages will be reduced by their assigned share of responsibility.
California’s official civil jury instructions recognize comparative fault as part of negligence cases.
California Gives Injury Victims a Filing Deadline
Per California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1, state law generally gives an injured person two years from the date of a personal injury to file a lawsuit based on that injury.
This doesn’t mean you should wait a full 24 months before talking to a Newport Beach whiplash car accident attorney. The longer you wait, the harder it can be for your lawyer to collect evidence because:
- Witnesses’ memories can fade.
- Surveillance footage could be overwritten.
- Important documents might be harder to locate.
There are also circumstances in which different deadlines apply. For example, claims involving a government entity have additional requirements, and certain types of cases have their own statutes of limitation.
Your Newport Beach whiplash accident attorney can identify the deadlines that apply to your particular claim and make sure you take important legal steps within the required time.
Contact Sweet James for Help From Our Newport Beach Whiplash Attorneys
If you’re trying to manage an insurance claim all by yourself, don’t wait any longer to contact Sweet James for legal assistance from our Newport Beach whiplash lawyers. We exclusively focus on accident and personal injury cases.
We’re prepared to pursue claims through settlement negotiations or litigation. As a law firm of more than 400 professionals, we look at data from thousands of injury cases to provide personalized service focused on you.
As part of The Sweet James Advantage, you will pay no fees or costs until we win. That’s because we work on a contingency fee basis. The sooner you call, the sooner we can discuss your options and your claim.
