Law Offices of Brian Robert Murphy Fort Mill Personal Injury

If you have had a car accident in Fort Mill, a Personal Injury Lawyer in South Carolina can help you navigate the insurance claims process. While filing a personal injury claim is not necessarily difficult or complex, the at-fault party’s insurance company will frequently try to negotiate the lowest possible settlement. Their job is not to support you in your recovery but rather to protect their investors and clients. In other words, an insurance adjuster simply does not have your interests at heart, and when it comes to finding doctors, physical therapists, and other medical care providers, you will be on your own.

At the Law Offices of Brian Robert Murphy, our Personal Injury Lawyer in Fort Mill SC supports our clients from the beginning of negotiations to the end of the settlement process. If you have been injured in an accident, we can counsel you on everything you need, including:
     • How and where to get necessary treatments for your injuries
     • How and why you need to involve your own health insurance company
     • How to get essential care when you don’t have medical insurance

Our Fort Mill Personal Injury Attorney can help you negotiate a fair settlement in line with your goals.

Talking to a Personal Injury Lawyer in South Carolina

Car accidents are common. Many are simply fender benders, but some can cause life-altering injuries and damage that can affect you and your loved ones for years. Our Fort Mill Car Accident Lawyer can help you navigate the complex legal claims process so that you can return to a sense of normalcy.

The immediate aftermath of a serious car accident often brings new hurdles, from medical appointments and rehabilitation to paperwork and insurance forms. Your days might seem filled with pain, stress, and worry about bills.

Our Personal Injury Lawyer Fort Mill SC can help with all aspects of your case by helping you get organized, gather evidence for your claim, analyze key records, and ensure you have the evidence you need to demonstrate fault. We can work directly with your healthcare providers to obtain necessary medical records about the nature and extent of your injuries, and we can negotiate with insurance companies to obtain a fair and appropriate settlement for your claim.

Insurance companies are businesses, and their allegiance is ultimately to their shareholders and customers. While they might offer to settle your claim, they are not on your side and are not interested in paying the highest settlement. Initial settlements are often lowball offers intended to make you go away. Our Car Accident Lawyer in Fort Mill SC will fight for a fair settlement for you by working with the claims adjuster to clearly identify each injury and loss that you have suffered and the full amount of damages to which you are entitled. Our allegiance is not to shareholders but to you.

What is Personal Injury Law?

Personal injury law protects people who have been hurt by someone else’s wrongful act or their failure to act. Personal injury law is also known as tort law. The law’s protection comes in the form of cash payments. The total amount of payments depends on the extent and type of damages an injured person can prove in court.

For example, in a typical rear-end automobile collision, the at-fault driver has a legal duty to keep a safe following distance from the vehicle in front of them. When the at-fault driver fails to stop in time and crashes into the car in front of them, that driver is legally negligent. Personal injury law directs the at-fault driver to pay damages to the person that the driver hit.

The amount of cash payments or damages the at-fault driver must pay depends on the legal damages of the injured person.

Understanding Damages

Car accident claims typically include two main types of damages: special damages and general damages. These two categories cover most claims. The largest part of the claim will be the special damages, which include costs such as medical expenses, such as:
     •Hospital stays
     •Doctor’s visits
     •Ambulance and other medical transportation costs
     •Medications
     •Necessary in-home services
     •Surgeries
     •Prosthetic devices
     •Rehabilitation and physical therapy
     •Cognitive therapy

Loss of income can also be included here when a car accident victim has been unable to work in the immediate aftermath of the accident or has been left permanently disabled. Calculating lost income is a fairly straightforward process when you are determining the amount you have already lost, but determining the loss of potential future income and earning capacity can be more complex, which makes the assistance of a seasoned attorney invaluable.

General damages are included to compensate for intangible or non-economic losses that you may have suffered as a result of the accident and injuries. This can include:
     •Pain and suffering
     •Loss of consortium or the relationship you had with your partner
     •Disfigurement
     •Loss of quality of life

When a car accident has caused the loss of life or wrongful death, you may also recover additional damages from the negligent party, including burial and funeral expenses and damages for emotional pain and suffering.

The overall goal of personal injury law is to reduce preventable injuries. Tort law seeks to hold at-fault drivers accountable for the damage they cause. By holding negligent drivers accountable, tort law acts as a deterrent for unsafe driving.
 

What You Need to Know about Personal Injury Claims

Even minor car accidents can have lasting consequences. You may suffer from physical injuries as well as traumatic memories and mental trauma. You might have financial losses stemming from damaged property, time off work, and medical expenses. While some of these expenses can be easy to prove, others may be more difficult and complex. Our Fort Mill Car Accident Lawyer can help.

At each stage, we can work with you to document your experiences and losses, providing detailed records of the accident, your injuries, your life since the accident, the medical treatments, and more, detailing your day-to-day life and the myriad of ways the accident has affected you.

The goal is to achieve a settlement that makes you whole again. While you might have suffered a permanent injury or disability, the personal injury settlement can award you monetary damages that compensate you for those losses. For this reason, severe and life-altering injuries and losses are generally compensated more generously than minor injuries. The law recognizes the greater severity of these losses and awards higher damages as a result.
 

Understanding Fault and Liability

In any personal injury case, proving fault is critical. While you might believe the facts of the case are indisputable, the court needs clear evidence that proves fault. Fault is a legal term that refers to negligence or legal responsibility.

To prove fault, our attorney will work to obtain all pertinent information and evidence to prove liability. This can include:
     •Photographs of the accident scene
     •Police reports and accident reconstructions
     •Photographs of your injuries
     •Medical records
     •Bills from health care providers

We can also ensure that the nature and extent of your injury are properly described and recorded along with any physical limitations and disability and that there is a clear link to the defendant’s actions.

 

Proving Negligence

Negligence often underlies personal injury claims and lawsuits. In a legal context, negligence refers to careless conduct or a failure to act with the level of care a specific situation requires. In some cases, negligence can also include an act of omission when there is a duty to act.

In a car accident, a person may be negligent by failing to yield the right of way, failing to stop for a pedestrian, or failing to turn on their headlights while driving at night. They may also be negligent by running a red light or speeding. In all of these scenarios, the driver failed to use reasonable care, and if they caused or contributed to a car accident that led to someone’s harm, they can be held financially liable for the resulting injuries and financial harm or damages.

To prove negligence, you must prove that:
     •The defendant violated their duty of care, which means that they were not operating their vehicle safely or appropriately when the accident occurred.
     •The defendant’s conduct was responsible for your injuries, which means that your injuries occurred as a direct result of the defendant’s negligence.
     •You suffered losses, which means that you can prove that you suffered lost wages, medical bills, property damage, or other provable losses as a result of the accident.

Keeping detailed records of all accident-related expenses, injuries, and property damage can help you gather and collect evidence and build your car accident claim.
 

Top Five Pitfalls in Dealing with the Insurance Company Yourself after a Fort Mill Car Accident

Many have asked us if they can handle the insurance claims without a personal injury attorney. Minor car accidents with minor injuries and minimal property loss can be handled alone, but more serious accidents with major injuries will usually benefit from the assistance of a personal injury attorney. If you decide to manage your own car accident claim, watch out for these common pitfalls to ensure your claim is settled fairly.

1. Failing to get medical treatment immediately

Injuries are not always immediately symptomatic or obvious right after a car crash or accident. Some might not show symptoms for a few days. Seeing a doctor immediately after your car accident can help you spot signs of trouble earlier and ensure you get an accurate diagnosis and treatment plan as quickly as possible, which may help reduce the risk of complications later.

2. Failing to follow up with your medical providers

Skipping appointments, missing doses of essential medications, or avoiding physical therapy can slow your recovery, increase the risk of complications, and may make your injuries worse. It also sends a message to the insurance company that you are not serious about recovery. Prioritize your health and wellness by following up with your medical providers.

3. Signing medical authorizations with no date limitations

A medical release allows the insurance adjuster to verify your injuries and complete your claim. However, signing an authorization with no date limitations provides them with unlimited access to your medical records. Don’t give them any more information than is necessary to complete your claim: You have a right to medical privacy, and we can help you protect both your privacy and your claim.

4. Failing to document your injuries with your doctors

Medical documentation can help prove that injuries were sustained in an accident as well as record the nature and extent of the injuries, the extent of the pain associated with the injuries, any health issues linked to the injuries, and how the injuries and associated health issues have affected you and your life since the accident.

5. Not using your medical insurance

Your health insurer will typically pay for accident-related injuries, and you should not delay seeking necessary medical treatment in an effort to avoid using it.

We can help you avoid these common mistakes and recover a better settlement

Why a Fort Mill Car Accident Lawyer Can Help You Battle the Insurance Company

At the Law Offices of Brian Robert Murphy, we are experienced in negotiating with insurance companies. We know how they are trained to trick, trap, and cheat injured people. Additionally, we know how the law applies to injured people. The insurance company is not above trying to give people less money than they are owed.

One of the most notorious examples of this involves health insurance. Health insurers often contract with healthcare providers to pay negotiated rates or lower rates. You are responsible for paying your copayment or coinsurance and your deductible, but you do not typically have to pay the difference between the negotiated rate and the higher rate the health care provider normally charges as long as they are in-network.

However, according to the law, the insurance company owes the injured party the full amount of the medical bills rather than just the amount their health insurance company paid. Often, insurance companies try to scam people who are not familiar with the law to take less money than they are owed.

Settlement Negotiations

Did you know that most personal injury claims are not settled in court? In the United States, the vast majority of personal injury claims are settled out of court. This process begins with filing a claim and typically ends with a settlement. In between these two events, a certain amount of negotiations will occur. How much negotiating occurs depends on the parties involved and the complexity of your case. If negotiations stall at any point, the injured party can still file a lawsuit while continuing to negotiate and work toward a resolution.

Our Fort Mill Personal Injury Attorney is a skilled negotiator and is committed to winning a fair and appropriate settlement on your behalf.

The Claims Process

Filing a claim should be a straightforward process. First, the injured party presents the insurance company with a demand letter and any supporting documents for the claim, such as medical records and bills. In simple cases, this might be enough for the claims adjuster, and the negotiation process could be finished after a few calls or written correspondence.

However, the negotiation process can become more complex along with the case’s complexity. If you have suffered more than minor injuries along with non-monetary losses, such as loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress, and significant emotional distress, the damages can become harder to quantify, making the negotiations less straightforward.

While the insurance company might be interested in protecting its bottom line, our Fort Mill Car Accident Lawyer is on your side. We will fight to ensure you recover the compensation to which you are entitled. When the insurance adjuster makes an offer that is too low, we will counteroffer with a fair amount and continue to negotiate until the final settlement addresses your needs. Our goal is to ensure that not only your special damages, such as your lost wages and medical bills, are included but also general damages and non-monetary losses are included.

Our Fort Mill Personal Injury Attorneys Can Help You Get Medical Care

To receive the right treatment, you need to be seen by an experienced doctor, physical therapist, or medical provider. These experts can not only help you make a full recovery but will also provide the right documentation of how you were hurt and how severe the injury is.

A personal injury lawyer can help you find health treatment options. Thanks to the resources we have, we can refer you to providers who have helped other clients in the past. These providers can quickly review your medical record and treat your condition right away.

A Fort Mill Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help With Pre-Existing Injuries

Insurance companies are infamous for exploiting people's pre-existing injuries to lower settlements. However, some laws ensure the person who caused the accident is responsible for a medical problem that arises from the accident. These laws prohibit the insurer from avoiding paying for a preexisting injury if the accident made that injury worse.

The law does not excuse a person from his wrongful conduct. The law is put this way: "[t]he fact that a person is more susceptible to injury or death because of a pre-existing condition or weakness does not serve to excuse an otherwise negligent defendant who has caused the injury, or allowed the injury or death to happen when there is a duty to act to prevent it. A negligent defendant takes his victim as he finds him, whether the victim is in perfect health or poor health, or somewhere in between." Ralph King Anderson, Jr., South Carolina Requests to Charge - Civil, 2009, § 13-13 Damages - Pre-Existing Condition

A car accident lawyer can help clients with pre-existing injuries examine past medical records and classify them correctly. Classifying an injury as pre-existing, existing, or aggravated has various consequences for a person’s personal injury claim.

Guaranteed, or We’ll Work for Free

My firm is confident in our abilities to help injured people. We are so confident, that we offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If we don’t settle your claim or win a verdict for you, you pay nothing. In addition, we advance the cost of litigation in most cases. Our 100% satisfaction guarantee applies only to attorney’s fee and not to case expenses. Contact our Car Accident Lawyer in Fort Mill SC today by clicking the button below to schedule your no-obligation consultation.