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Personal Injury Attorneys Stillwater, OK

If you have been seriously injured due to someone else’s negligence, you may be feeling overwhelmed. It is upsetting to get hurt, but when it was a completely avoidable situation, it can be downright frustrating. Depending on the accident or incident, you can be so terribly hurt that you can’t go back to living a normal life. Even a broken bone never feels the same after it heals.

The silver lining here is that you may be eligible to bring a personal injury claim so that you can see the compensation you deserve. With the help of an experienced personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK, you can determine who was at fault, determine the value of your injuries, and fight the insurance company tooth and nail to get what is fair.

Hiring the Right Attorney

It’s could very well be a tough, long battle with the insurance company, so having someone who you like and trust on your side will make all the difference in the world. Your attorney should be someone who you feel like can take care of you. There will be challenges and obstacles, and if you don’t have confidence in your attorney, that is going to be an issue. You might not get what you deserve. To ensure that you have the right attorney on your side, you should look for someone who is experienced and competent. During your free consultation, interview your attorney to make sure that they are a good fit. Ask them about their past cases. See if they have handled cases like yours.

At Murray Law Firm, we are confident that you will find a good fit with Oklahoma personal injury lawyer James Murray. Please call our office to schedule a free consultation to discuss your case and see how we can help you on your way to getting compensation.

Accidents in Oklahoma

Personal injury is a broader term for many subcategories. Your injury will probably fall into one or more subcategories of personal injury. The types of personal injury cases include:

• Accidents at the workplace
• Traffic accidents
• Dog bites
• Slip and falls
• Product liability
• Chemical exposure
• Burns

It is best to meet with an attorney to discuss the details of your accident and tell them the extent of the injuries that you sustained so that you can figure out your next steps.

Modified Comparative Fault State

In Oklahoma, they use what is called modified comparative fault. Essentially, what this rule does is it allows for there to be shared fault. In some states, if you are even a little bit at fault, 1%, you cannot bring a claim. You would be completely barred from filing a personal injury claim. In Oklahoma, thankfully, there is some leniency. The only way you will NOT receive compensation is if you have 50% fault or more for the accident. In theory, if you were only 20% at fault, you will be able to file a claim. The only limitations with having that 20% fault is how much you can recover in damages. Let’s say you would be awarded $15,000. Because you were 20% at fault, your compensation is reduced. You would not be winning the full amount. You would receive 20% of $15,000 which is $12,000. Getting an attorney involved early on can help you avoid costly mistakes that the insurance company can use to make you seem more at fault than you really are. While you may have two years from the date of the accident to file a claim, you should not wait that long to hire an attorney. It will make it very difficult for them to get you the compensation you deserve.

Avoiding Critical Mistakes

The insurance company that represents the at fault party will do everything in their power to fight your claim. They will try to pin the blame on you. They do this because they don’t want to give you what your case is worth. They will try to turn the blame on you every chance they get. That’s why it is so important that you do not make any statements for them. If they call, they may ask you a simple question, “How are you doing?” Many people just automatically respond politely. They will say, “I’m doing well, how are you?” or something along those lines. If you say that, or anything like that, they can and will use that against you. You will be trying to ask them for money for the severe injuries you are suffering from because their insured was careless, and they will throw that statement back in your face. They will try to argue that you said you were well and that you can’t possibly need compensation if you were doing well. This is extremely unfair, but it can be avoided. If the insurance company calls you and wants to talk, don’t give them anything. You can tell them, “I’m acquiring council and all communications will go through them.” You will avoid any issues with making a statement by turning them away to your lawyer.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I pick the best attorney?

How do you select an attorney to deal with a personal injury case? Well, you need to find an attorney who is experienced in dealing with your particular case whether it be a car accident, dog bite, or a slip and fall. You need to find an attorney who understands how important it is to have good healthcare providers and get you to those healthcare providers. You need to find an attorney that understands that you’re going to be laid up for a while and you can’t work, and they have to have some compassion for you. You have to find an attorney who will hire an investigator and work hard for you, do focus groups and make sure that he does everything in his power to frame this case in a way that maximizes your recovery. As you look for attorneys, ask them how many cases they’ve handled, ask them how many jury trials they’ve handled, and you need to select the one that has the experience you need and the one that you feel the best about.

What mistakes should I avoid making?

The most common mistake I see when people who have been injured in an accident is that one, they think it’s their fault. They don’t think that they shouldn’t say anything. You need to make sure you contact an attorney and help them understand what happened and what the circumstances were like. In a lot of cases, it’s not the going to be your fault that got hurt; it’s going to be a negligent party. Don’t think it’s your fault.

The second mistake people make in a personal injury case is they don’t seek medical treatment soon enough and if they do seek medical treatment, they don’t do what the doctor asks them to do because they don’t think they have time or they can’t afford it. Doctors professionals. When you see a doctor, follow their advice. If you don’t, it will come back on you when you try to negotiate your case or you try to go to trial with your case.

The third mistake clients make is they don’t hire attorneys soon enough and so a lot of the evidence is gone. If it’s a slip and fall, the store might be remodeled. At a construction site, the event, device, or structure that caused the accident might be gone now, might be disappeared, might be fixed, and so you can’t take good pictures of really what happened to show a jury. Hire an attorney. Select an attorney and let them take care of the investigation, the preservation of evidence, and help them orchestrate this case for you and direct you in the right ways.

Should I talk to the insurance companies?

Well, the first thing you need to know is don’t give them the statement. The second thing you need to do is hire a lawyer and refer the insurance adjuster or the insurance company to your attorney. As soon as you tell the insurance company you have an attorney, they will not ever call you back. You don’t want to run the risk of saying something or giving them a statement that will jeopardize your ability to a full, fair, and equitable settlement.

If you think the insurance company is your friend, you’re sadly mistaken. You have to understand; their job is to pay you as little as possible to resolve the claim. I would suggest you hire an experienced injury attorney to handle all your calls and all your correspondence with the insurance company.

What kind of compensation can I get?

If you’re injured in Oklahoma, you’re entitled to your medical expenses, your future and past medical expenses, past and future pain and suffering, any compensation for permanent disability, and permanent impairment. You’re entitled to loss of your ability to live life, to enjoy your passions, to enjoy your hobbies, and to enjoy your family. Personal injury cases are usually pretty difficult when there are serious injuries, so you need to hire a lawyer so they can advise you as to all the possible avenues of recovery and the damages you can ask for.

How do I prove someone else was liable for my accident?

When either yourself or loved one has been injured in an accident, you need to determine the liable party. If you’re in an accident and another driver causes the wreck, They’re the liable party. Sometimes there could be other people in personal injury cases, third-parties involved, other insurance companies and various issues, but it’s a pretty slippery slope too. It’s not all that clear cut for the average person. I would just suggest you hire an attorney that has experience with your type of injury as soon as you can.

How long do I have to file a claim?

After you’ve been involved in a personal injury case in Oklahoma, you have two years to bring your claim. What that means is you either have to have it settled or you have to file your lawsuit before two years or you’re barred from bringing any actions against the person who caused your injuries. Hire a lawyer early to immediately begin to collect evidence.

If you don’t get pictures and you don’t interview witnesses right after the injury, then you might lose that evidence forever. Don’t wait. When you’re seriously injured, get to a lawyer quickly so pictures can be taken, witnesses can be located, and we can preserve that evidence.

What is my case value?

I really can’t immediately answer that when I first meet a client. Until I figure out how serious their injuries are, how they recover from their injuries, what their permanent impairment is, and the circumstances of the accident, I won’t know the case value. You really can’t put a number on these things. What you can do is hire the right attorney who can help you determine all the many factors that goes into valuing a case and help you maximize and get a reasonable and fair settlement from the insurance company.

Set Up a Free Consultation Today

If you are in serious pain, dealing with piling medical bills, and have an insurance company pestering you for a statement, you should talk to a lawyer. Call our Stillwater personal injury lawyer at Murray Law Firm today for a free consultation. You can focus on recovery while James Murray takes on your case and fights to get you the compensation that you deserve for your injuries and damages.

 

Car Accident Lawyers Stillwater, OK

While you may still be in a lot of pain and figuring out how bad your injuries are, you’re also probably worrying about how you are going to pay for the added expenses of your treatments on top of the lost wages you aren’t getting because you’re unable to go back to work. It is a lot to think about, but you don’t have to go at this alone. With the help of an Oklahoma car accident attorney, you can manage these obstacles and get the compensation you deserve.

Causes of Car Accidents

In Oklahoma, accidents happen all the time. Oftentimes, they happen because someone isn’t paying attention to what they are doing. Common causes of car accidents include:

• Speeding
• Reckless driving
• Failure to yield
• Not checking blind spots before lane changes
• Drunk driving

If you were hit by a drunk driver, you may be able to seek punitive damages. Those damages will be awarded on top of what you get for your personal injury claim. Punitive damages can be awarded for cases where there was malice involved. For all other causes, you will be able to seek compensation for a car accident claim.

Being Awarded Compensation

As mentioned, there are two types of compensation that you can be awarded; compensatory and punitive damages. The way you can ensure you have a good shot at getting these damages is to hire an Oklahoma car accident attorney. In this state, you will have to prove that the other party was at fault, which is much easier to successfully accomplish with an attorney. If you try to go at this alone, you may be ruining your chances of getting compensation. If the insurance company tries to point their fingers at you and say the car accident was your fault, you could lose out on the ability to file.

In Oklahoma, if you are determined to be 50% or more at fault, you will not be able to file a claim. Oklahoma follows the rule of modified comparative negligence. That means that if you are a percent at fault (below 50) you can only recover that percentage of compensation. If you were determined to be 45% at fault, and you are awarded $10,000, you are only going to get $5,500. However, if you are determined to be 0% at fault, you will get the full amount that you were awarded. Having a good attorney represent you can mean all the difference. They will be able to fight the insurance company and keep them from pinning you with the blame. They don’t want to give you what you deserve, so they’re going to try to make you as at fault as possible. Your attorney will be able to stop them from doing that.

Injuries from Car Accidents

What your case is worth is based on how bad your injuries are. If you were so seriously hurt that your entire life changed, your case is going to be worth more than someone whose arm broke but can mostly return to their life as it was before. That is not to say the person who broke their arm should not file a claim; you would still be able to do so. The value of a car accident claim is simply going to increase with the severity of the injuries. Some reasons that will make your case more valuable include:

• You need a lot of medical treatments
• You have a lot of medical bills
• You will not be able to return to work
• You are missing out on time with your family
• You need to switch jobs because your injury prevents you from doing what you used to do
• You need a surgery
• You need physical therapy

All of these things and more go into how we determine the value of your case. It is important that you keep record of anything you spend that you would not had to have spent if it were not for your car accident.

A mistake many people make after a car accident would be if they walked away from the scene of the accident, and did not take record of their injuries in any way. You can take photos of any obvious injury, and you can tell the police when they show up how badly you are hurt. Those are two ways to record injuries. For worse injuries, you should seek immediate medical care. If you don’t need an ambulance, at least schedule a visit with your primary care physician or visit an Urgent Care center.

If you are in a hurry to go somewhere after the accident, let’s say you have to get to work, and you don’t seek any medical care or record your injuries in any way, you are going to have a hard time proving you need compensation. You really shouldn’t wait more than a day or two to get to a doctor. Don’t think that just because you’re only just sore, you’re not seriously injured. It may take some time for the adrenaline to wear off and then you’ll feel that injury later on.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Should I Do After a Car Accident?

There are pretty basic things that I think are true in every case. First thing you need to do is be calm and analyze the situation. I would suggest you take pictures of the accident area, including the cars. Make sure you got the names of all the witnesses. Several times in the past, people say there’s someone who saw the whole wreck, but forgot what their name was. Make sure you get names and numbers of everybody who’s there to help you, give assistance, or witnessed the wreck.

The next thing I would probably recommend everyone do is call the police. A lot of times, people don’t want their driving record being spotted or they don’t want to be given a citation, so they try to talk someone into not calling the police. That’s not a good idea. Call the police.

The next thing, and probably one of the most important things you need to do, is to get to a place where you can think and you can make some decisions about whether you want to see the doctor or not, or a physician. The ER room is available. There’s a lot of Urgent Care facilities now. The big thing is, make sure you get checked over to make sure that you’re okay, and that there’s nothing serious. Oftentimes, all the true symptoms of your wreck won’t surface for several days and maybe several weeks. Don’t hesitate to go to the doctor. Don’t hesitate to seek treatment.

One of the things that people always struggle with is, “When do I need a lawyer?” I would suggest you contact a lawyer immediately, at least for a consultation. If you think that the insurance company is going to work with you to your benefit, then you have another thing coming. They’re in the business of paying as little as they can.

Wrecks are something that most people don’t go through very often, and so to go through a wreck by yourself, not knowing anything about compensation is not the best decision. Knowledge of the law and your rights gives you power to make good decisions. If you don’t have that information, then you’re already a step behind the insurance company, because they know all your rights and they have all the information. If you don’t seek counsel, you’re going to have to rely on the insurance company and they do not have your best interest at heart.

How Do I Pick the Right Attorney?

One of the most important decisions a person who’s been injured in an auto wreck needs to make is selecting an attorney. There are a lot of attorneys out there. There are a lot of attorneys who want your business. There are a lot of attorneys that hold themselves as a competent attorney in personal injury wrecks; that’s just not the case. When you select a personal injury attorney who you want to represent you, there are a couple things you need to look at. One, how much of their practice is dedicated to personal injury? Do they work regularly with personal injury cases? Do they go to trial? A lot of lawyers settle all their cases; they don’t go to trial. Ask your attorney how and when the last time is they went to trial and what the result was.

Another issue is how competent they are in what they do. You can look at their reviews. You can ask for references from people that they’ve previously represented. The other issues that come out in personal injury cases is you need to ask them the length of the trial. The other question I think is important is, who’s going to be handling your case? A lot of big firms will hand you off to an associate with very little experience and you’ll wonder who really represents you in the case. In our firm, I will be representing any injury case personally, from start to finish.

The big thing is if you like your attorney. Do you connect with them? Are they a person who understands what it is to be an Oklahoman and the things that you have to deal with? When you’re injured, your whole life is turned upside down and you need to make sure the attorney you select understands that and you feel comfortable with them.

You’re the boss. You get to select your attorney, and you need to make that decision wisely. You might want to interview several attorneys before you make your decision; just don’t select the one that you’ve talked to the very first time. Just because people spend a lot of money on TV doesn’t mean they’re the best attorney; that just means they spend more money advertising. Select the attorney you believe will represent you fairly and aggressively.

What Mistakes Can I Avoid After an Accident?

The first one that comes to mind is that people believe that they’re not really that hurt, that their pain is going to go away quickly, they don’t want to make a problem by making a claim and they don’t want to cause the person that hit them trouble, and so they don’t seek medical treatment. They try to be tough, then in a few weeks, the problem manifests itself and it gets a lot worse. They go to a doctor and they make a claim, and they make statements to the doctor, and the insurance company will use that lack of seeking treatment in a timely fashion against you, saying, “Well, if you really would’ve been hurt, you would’ve sought treatment immediately.” Seek an evaluation immediately, even if you don’t think you’re really hurt that bad at the time. Get to a doctor, make a record, make a path that your attorney can follow someday if you do need to make a claim.

The second mistake that people make is they don’t tell their doctors everything. Make sure you tell your doctors your history. If you’ve hurt your back six years earlier and you hurt your back again in this wreck, that’s okay. Tell them. Don’t not disclose something because you think it’s going to hurt your case. Full disclosure is always the best. Not telling a doctor about a previous back injury might hurt your case, so be honest with your doctor and be honest with your attorney.

Another mistake people make is they don’t hire a lawyer soon enough. They think, “Well, I don’t want to hire a lawyer. Lawyers just get in the way. It’ll drag it out and we won’t be able to get this case settled quickly.” Odds are, you’re not going to sell your case quickly for adequate amount of money. The insurance company is not going to offer you an adequate, fair amount to begin with. Hire a lawyer so they can help you navigate through this. Don’t think that you can do it yourself; you can’t. There are just too many things to worry about.

Another mistake people make is that, when they get to the accident scene, right after the wreck, there are people there that come up, and people forget to collect evidence. Make sure you get the names, addresses, and phone numbers, of people that come to help you get out of the car. Get all that information because this is a transient world now. People move a lot. They relocate a lot. They travel a lot. Someone who sees the wreck might be from Memphis, Tennessee, and they’re leaving town that day. Don’t hesitate to ask people for their names and addresses. If you want to, just give them your cell phone or have them type in their name and cell phone number and save it as a contact. Get names of your witnesses, take pictures of the scene, and make sure you download those and save them.

Another mistake that people make in auto wrecks in Oklahoma is that oftentimes, they might be on the phone when the wreck happens. That’s not totally a bad thing, especially if you have Bluetooth. Don’t immediately try to delete stuff off your phone so the police won’t see it; that’s not going to work. Just be cognitive of your cell phone as evidence. Make sure you save your text messages from the time before and after the wreck. Make sure you keep a record of your phone records as well. That’s becoming a bigger issue.

The other mistake people make in car wreck cases is they don’t really take their injuries serious enough. If you don’t take care of a minor injury, sometimes it can turn into a more serious injury. That’s a problem because our main goal is to get you back into your normal day-to-day routine. The sooner you address your problem, the sooner you can get it fixed with medical treatment.

Should I Talk to the Insurance Companies?

Insurance companies will attempt to contact a person injured in a wreck by one of their insured. I think it’s probably okay to give them your name, address, and phone number. They have that information anyway – it’s on the accident report – but I wouldn’t go into details about your injuries and the treatment you’re receiving. They have a way of asking leading questions. They want to lead you into a path that says, “Oh, I’m not really hurt that bad,” or “I’m not really hurt at all,” or “My pain didn’t start until a week after the wreck.” They want to put you in a compromising situation so they can cause confusion to a potential jury.

I would recommend that you do not talk to the insurance company, other than just giving them the basic information and getting a claim number from them. I would contact an attorney, hire an attorney, and let them deal with the adjuster. An attorney knows all of your rights. An insurance adjuster knows all your rights too, and they want to manipulate the facts and manipulate the questions they ask you to minimize or limit the amount of money you may be able to claim someday.

What Damages Can I Recover?

In Oklahoma, there are several things you can make claims for in your car wreck case. You can make a claim for your medical expenses, your personal injuries, your pain and suffering, your future pain and suffering, or if it’s a wrongful death, you can make a claim for the loss of a loved one. A lot of those are emotional and hard to put a value on, but you can make a claim for that. You can also make a claim for your vehicle, get your vehicle fixed and paid for. Normally, that happens earlier in the case. You can also make a claim for any type of future permanent impairment. If you can’t return to the work you had previously done, that’s a factor.

There are a lot of things you can make claims for. Some of them are easier to prove than others. If you’re self-employed, it’s tough to show what your lost wages are, as the fact that you sometimes don’t always show you make more money in some years, and so it’s hard to determine exactly what you make. If you work for somebody and you get a W2 every year, it’s definitely easier to show how much you would have made.

The big things, though, that I think you need to make a claim for in personal injury cases, outside of wrongful death cases, are your pain and suffering, past and future; your medical expenses; and also you have an opportunity to help the community be safer by deterring this particular person who caused the injury from doing it again to somebody else. One of the things that I really stress is that we want to make our community safer. If someone violates a safety rule and causes injury, then that person needs to be deterred from doing that again. Distracted driving has become a problem and that’s why we need to always look at those things. There’s quite an array of items and damages you can claim in an auto wreck case.

Who Pays My Medical Bills?

If you are in a wreck and you are not at fault, the other person who is at fault will eventually pay for your medical bills. They might not do it right away because the insurance company controls the money and when it comes to you. Do not delay going to the doctor or getting medical treatment because you don’t know who’s going to pay for it. If you contact a lawyer and talk to them about the case, they can tell you very quickly if there’s going to be medical coverage for you to seek medical treatment.

Many physical therapists and chiropractors will wait until the case is settled before they ask for your medical bills, so they won’t tell you every time you come in, “We can’t see you anymore until you pay.” Some doctors won’t even see you if it’s a car wreck case. If you contact an attorney, they’ll be able to direct you to physicians that will be able to work with you and get your medical bills paid when the case is settled. Please seek medical treatment as soon as you feel you need it. Symptoms take time to manifest themselves, and if you think you’re not getting better, get to a doctor immediately and contact a lawyer about helping you get your medical bills paid.

Are My Lost Wages Reimbursed?

Lost wages are something that people ask me about the very first time they see me. Most people who work every day, get paid by the hour, their paycheck is important to them. If you’re injured and you can’t work for two weeks, and then you have to go to a doctor, and you miss a half a day of work every week, it adds up quickly. What we do is we keep track of your hours that you are out of the office, and the time you take off to go to the doctor, and the mileage on your car that it takes to go to the doctor. You Just need to keep track of all your hours, and then we will multiply that by your wage and we’ll make that as one of your claims. I do not believe that will be taxable when you get your settlement.

It’s pretty simple if you’re a wage-earner; it’s a little more difficult if you’re self-employed. You need to keep track of jobs you lost or opportunities you missed because you were unable to give estimates or go bid on a job. If you had to hire someone to do your work while you were gone, you can be reimbursed for the amount of money it took to pay someone to finish your jobs that you had.

What If I’m Hit by an Uninsured Driver?

There are a few situations in Oklahoma that cause a person who’s been injured in a wreck some real problems. One of these areas is when there is no insurance by the person who caused the wreck. Oklahoma is one of the nation-leaders in uninsured or underinsured motorists; that’s not a good thing for people who need help. If a person is involved in a wreck with someone who has no insurance, they have a couple of options. They can make claims against their health insurance if they have health insurance. They can make a claim against their medical payments that they have. If they don’t have any of those, then there’s going to be a problem. Oftentimes, we can find a way to get you medical treatment and have these expenses paid for.

I would suggest that you evaluate your own personal car insurance, so when you’re involved in a car wreck, you’ll be covered if an uninsured or underinsured motorist hits you. If a person who hits you has the minimum insurance of $25,000 but your medical bills are $100,000, you have a problem because they’re only going to have to pay $25,000. That’s why you need uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. In Oklahoma, we can purchase this, and the coverage is not that expensive. I recommend that everyone has uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.

Should I Take a Settlement Offer?

Insurance companies will contact someone who’s been injured in a wreck and they will offer a small amount of money as a settlement to see if they can get the case to settle quickly. That is not in anyone’s best interest. Many times, your symptoms don’t manifest themselves for one, two, maybe even three weeks. Sometimes injuries will get worse over time. What you may believe is nothing more than a sore neck might turn into, six months later, having to have a serious operation. I have at least one client who had a whiplash injury. A year later she had to have a cervical fusion. They offered her very little money up front – she didn’t take it – and by the time it was all over, she did very well on the case.

You have to understand that insurance companies have their best interest at heart. In Oklahoma, I call it the four D’s of defense used by insurance companies: delay, deny, discourage, defeat. Do not be upset if they deny your claim. Do not be upset if it’s a low amount of money. More often than not, people take their money because they don’t know anything else to do. Don’t worry about a low offer.

Seek an attorney. Help will come to you if you hire an attorney. If you try to do it on your own, you’re at the mercy of the insurance company. Do not take the initial amount. Wait and make sure you completely understand your health status.

How Long Will My Case Take?

You may be wondering, how long do car wreck cases last if we have to file a lawsuit? That depends on a lot of things. The defense attorneys want the cases to last awhile; it’s called litigation fatigue. What happens is that, when a plaintiff or someone who’s injured in a wreck is seeking justice, seeking an appropriate amount of money for their injuries and their medical expenses, the insurance companies will drag the case out as long as they can by filing motions, delaying getting discovery to you, and doing everything they can to delay the case, in the hope that the person injured will get tired of waiting, will get tired of the system, and throw their hands up in the air and say, “I’ll take anything they offer me now; I’m tired of this.”

I recommend to people when we have to file a lawsuit to get money and compensation for your injuries, you have to be ready for the long haul. From the date of the wreck, it could take several years to get the case resolved. You have to do all the depositions and all the discovery, and take doctor’s depositions, then you have to find the time when the court can have a trial. You have to look at all the attorney’s schedules and the judges schedules, so it is a journey and you need to have the right lawyer with you in this journey that will be able to help explain your rights to you, and help keep the case moving quickly as possible. Don’t expect this to be a quick fix if you have to file a lawsuit, because once you enter the legal world of litigation in Oklahoma, you lose control of the timing.

How Long Do I Have to File?

In Oklahoma, if you’re injured in a car wreck, you have a two year statute of limitations. What that means is you have two years to bring your claim by filing a lawsuit. I believe you should never wait until the last minute to file your lawsuit. I think you should seek out legal representation immediately, so your lawyer can lead you through the maze and the gauntlet of a personal injury lawsuit case. Defense attorneys do not treat you nicely and they’re not always reasonable. You need to locate witnesses. You need to take pictures of the accident scene. You need to take pictures of your vehicles. You need to make sure you get good medical attention. Don’t wait until the very last minute to file your claim or seek an attorney. The earlier you get an attorney involved, the earlier you can protect your witnesses, protect the evidence, and get a higher recovery.

How Much is My Case Worth?

It all depends on how seriously you’re injured, how long it takes you to recover, how much work you missed, and what type of medical procedures need to occur. You can’t really tell what your claim is worth until you get to a place where you feel comfortable with where you are physically, and emotionally. That takes months, if not years. A lot of times, too, your claim might be worth as much as there is insurance out there. It takes a while to figure out how much insurance is involved in the case.

It’s not an easy question. I can’t give you an answer up front. I can give you a range, possibly, but I hate to do that because you just don’t know what your body is going to do in reacting to an injury and what is going to be discovered from the person who caused the wreck. Sometimes values of the case could go up because of the person who caused the wreck’s behavior, their history, and their attitude at the scene was unsavory. Bottom line, in Oklahoma, it’s not a decision I can make up front to tell you how much your claim is worth. It takes time to see how the case unfolds, the evidence unfolds, and how your injuries progress and how quickly you heal.

Contact Our Stillwater, OK Car Accident Attorney

If you know you were seriously injured after a car accident and now you want legal representation, please call our Stillwater, Oklahoma car accident attorney James Murray today for a free consultation. You don’t have to let the insurance companies bully you into a low ball settlement offer. Let Murray Law Firm fight for your rightful compensation.

Truck Accident Lawyers Stillwater, OK

If you have been terribly injured in a truck accident which occurred in Oklahoma, we are very sorry to hear that Many people who suffer serious injuries are often overwhelmed and frustrated. You may be wondering, “What do I do now? Who should I talk to and when? If I hire an attorney to represent me, when will my case be over? How will I pay my bills if I can’t work?” The list of questions go on.

Truck Accidents Can Be Very Complicated Cases

Due to their great size, weight and speed, accidents involving trucks, tractor trailers and 18-wheelers can cause death or catastrophic personal injuries which require significant medical treatment.

Truck accident cases can be extremely complicated. Make sure you protect your legal rights by hiring the best Oklahoma truck accident attorney you can find so that you may receive the amount of money you rightfully deserve.

Hire Your Truck Accident Attorney as Soon as Possible

First, it is very important to hire an Oklahoma truck accident attorney as soon as possible. As noted below, the filing deadlines to protect your potential insurance benefits and lawsuit award should be dealt with immediately by you and your attorney.

Many truck accidents occur due to truck drivers who allow themselves to be distracted, speeding trucks, overloaded trucks and/or overtired truck drivers, among other causes. Trucking companies can be very difficult to deal with after a truck accident. Many companies will not answer their phones or even give you the truck number or truck driver name involved in your accident. Hiring a strongly experienced truck accident attorney can help your case by immediately conducting a thorough investigation as well as obtaining the truck company’s accident, repair, maintenance, and driver records.

Oklahoma is a Traditional “Fault” State for Truck Accidents

In Oklahoma, if you are injured in a truck accident, your options to recover a damage award are governed by its accident “fault” rules.

This means that if you are injured in a truck accident, the defendant (truck driver, truck company and/or other vehicle drivers) who caused the accident is at “fault” and responsible, through their insurance company, to pay for the following types of damages you may have suffered: lost wages, damage to your vehicle, medical bills, pain and suffering, scarring and disfigurement, disability, emotional distress, and loss of consortium.

In Oklahoma, you can file an insurance claim with your own insurance company or file a claim with the defendant’s insurance company. You may also file a lawsuit in court. Insurance benefit filing deadlines are short and require immediate action. Ask your attorney to help you file all necessary paperwork on time.

If you choose to sue the defendant in court for your truck accident, you and your attorney need to prove that the defendant you are suing owed you a duty of care, that they failed to perform this duty of care either by their action or failure to act while driving either their personal truck or their company’s/employer’s truck, that this defendant caused the accident, that they are therefore responsible for your injuries and that your injuries resulted in money or other types of damages. If both the truck driver and the trucking company are at fault, you may sue both in court.

However, truck accident cases are complicated. For example, although a truck driver may have hit you, another driver may have caused the truck driver to swerve into your path. Road conditions and weather also have to be taken into account, as does your own portion of fault in causing the accident, if any.

Getting Compensation Even if You Partially Caused the Accident

It should be noted that, in Oklahoma, if you are found to be partially responsible for your truck accident, then your awarded damages will be reduced according to your percentage of fault. However, if you are found to be 50% or more responsible for the accident, you will not be entitled to receive any amount of damages.

Importance of Hiring an Stillwater, OK Truck Accident Attorney as Soon as Possible

It is very important to hire a truck accident attorney as soon as possible. In Oklahoma, most truck accident cases must be sued against the defendant or defendants who caused the accident within 2 years from the date of the accident. This 2-year period is called the “statute of limitations.” If you fail to sue your case with the court within the 2-year period, your case will be thrown out and you will be unable to obtain either a fair settlement or damage award at trial.

Please note that, if you are injured in a truck accident while you are driving your vehicle in your capacity as a worker or employee, you may need to file a worker’s/workman’s compensation claim to protect your rights. Ask your attorney.

Another reason to hire an attorney right away is that memories, witnesses, and evidence of your truck accident case will tend to fade away over time. Prompt investigation of the facts by your attorney will help make sure your truck accident case’s evidence is protected for your benefit.

Finding the Right Attorney for Your Truck Accident Case

Be sure to ask friends, business contacts, and family for referrals to attorneys who have strong trial experience in truck accident cases. Do not hire an attorney who is merely a general practitioner or handles cases in several different areas of the law. You need an attorney who specializes in Oklahoma truck accident cases.

In addition, while interviewing possible attorneys to represent you, ask them how many trials they have personally handled in truck accident cases. The insurance company will be much more willing to make reasonable settlement offers to settle your truck accident case if they know your attorney is an experienced Oklahoma trial attorney in these types of cases. When you interview possible attorneys, be sure to ask whether you will be regularly dealing with them directly, or their junior associate, paralegal, or nurse.

Most truck accident attorneys will expect to be paid roughly 1/3^rd of any legal recovery you may receive, whether through settlement or trial award. However, you do not have to pay any money out of pocket to hire a truck accident attorney to represent you. It is the attorney who pays all of your case’s expenses and out of pocket costs up front, such as filing fees and office expenses as well as the hiring of expert witnesses to prove fault, and/or the amount of your damages.

It is important to respond quickly to any questions or requests for information that your attorney sends to you. The faster you respond, the faster they can move your truck accident case along. However, if you feel that your attorney does not return your calls, e-mails, or texts quickly, you should consider changing attorneys.

Importance of Seeking Medical Attention

If you have suffered a serious personal injury as a result of your truck accident, seek medical attention immediately. Some injuries, pain, and limitations are not immediately noticeable and may take time to develop. You may not even be aware that you have suffered an injury immediately after your truck accident. Your attorney may recommend a doctor to you so that all of your injuries will be properly documented and treated.

The longer you wait to seek medical attention, the harder it may be for your attorney to relate your injuries to your truck accident and therefore prove your case.

The Insurance Companies Aren’t Your Friends

If you are contacted by a representative of an insurance company, do not respond. The insurance company is not on your side. They want to pay you as little as possible for your truck accident. After you hire your truck accident attorney, ask your attorney to respond to the insurance company.

If either your insurance company or the defendant’s insurance company makes an early settlement offer to you in order to settle your truck accident case, you should understand that the offer will be low and nowhere near the amount you could possibly receive through a later settlement or trial.

Beware – accepting an early settlement offer will prevent you from proceeding with your truck accident lawsuit against the responsible defendant or defendants. Insurance companies usually make much higher settlement offers once a truck accident case approaches its trial date, especially if your attorney is known to have a good deal of Oklahoma truck accident trial experience. The insurance companies will know the names of attorneys that go to trial.

Remember, truck companies, their insurance companies and their attorneys are focused on only one thing – paying you as little as possible for your accident. And that’s not right. That’s why we will do everything we possibly can to make sure you receive a fair damage award.

Although the legal process is slow, we will do our best to push the insurance companies to move faster and will do everything in our power to make your case take as little time as possible.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do after a truck accident?

When you’re injured in a tractor trailer wreck, there are several things you need to think about doing. The first thing we worry about is our client’s health. We make sure our client gets to the doctors they need. We make sure our doctors are competent in these areas. We make sure our client gets a specialist if they need it. We make sure that the doctors get the therapy and they find doctors that will work with them with their business schedule. We make sure that our clients have everything they need to get their health back because, at the end of the day, this is all about our clients’ health and getting them back to where they were before the wreck. No amount of money we can bring them will change their health. In today’s world, being able to enjoy your life is the most important thing.

Once we have our client situated, then we turn ourselves to investigating the case. The reason it’s so important to get right on these cases is because there’s so much evidence out there. The tractor trailer trucks have a lot of electronic equipment. They have devices there that tell you how fast they were going, when they were signaling, when they were braking, and how hard they were braking. They’ll have electronic logs that tell you how long the driver has been driving, and how many times he’s taken a rest when he needs to. It’ll help us understand how many of the safety rules the tractor trailer driver either broke or obeyed. It’ll help us determine how many of the safety rules the trucking company obeyed or disobeyed. It’s really important we investigate it. We hire investigators to go out, and take pictures of the scene. We hire accident reconstructionists to look at all the topics involved with that to make a mathematical inquiry of the speed and the various things that they do to come up with their opinion in what caused the wreck.

We hire tractor trailer safety experts who determine how this wreck might have occurred. Did it occur due to a violation of safety rules that have been laid out in the Federal Motor Safety Carrier Regulations? These regulations have been set out to keep the public safe. These are important things that have to happen. Tractor trailer companies are all over the country. They send tractor trailers all over the country, so you have to make sure you get ahold of all the witnesses. You keep their names, addresses, or emails. You have to safeguard this evidence. You have to make sure that in a year, when you want to find somebody, you have the proper contact information to call them. I’ve had several instances where I got a case late and I couldn’t find the witnesses; that hurts your claim. The only person who benefits from delaying starting the investigation and getting after a tractor trailer injury case is the tractor trailer company and the insurance company. It doesn’t benefit the injured person at all. Make sure you hire a lawyer, so we can start on the steps to a successful recovery for you in a tractor trailer injury case.

What steps should I take after I’m hurt in an accident?

When someone is injured in a tractor trailer wreck, you need to do a couple of things really quickly. First thing is you need to get medical treatment. You need to get to a doctor to be checked out. A lot of times, you’ll have serious injuries and you might be hospitalized. Don’t be in a hurry to get out. Don’t be impatient. Follow the doctor’s orders. If he tells you that you need to rest, rest. If he tells you that you need more tests, take the tests. If he tells you that you need to go to therapy, do that. You need to listen to the professionals when you’re involved in these wrecks because you could be permanently injured and impaired if you don’t take care of business and do what your doctor tells you to do. If you don’t even think you’re hurt, still go to a doctor and make sure you’re not. Do a thorough evaluation.

The second thing you need to do is you need to hire an experienced, seasoned tractor trailer attorney. This is important because tractor trailers are very technical cases. You need to preserve the evidence on this tractor trailer rig. They have devices there that record the speed, determine if the signal light was on, and determine how long they were stationary. They have electronic logs that tell you how long this driver’s been driving without a wreck, and also how long he’s been driving without a rest. Tractor trailer drivers have to rest so many hours a day. It tells you if they’ve been driving recklessly or if they’ve been making sudden turns, if their brakes aren’t working. These are all things that you need to preserve. You preserve those by hiring an experienced lawyer who deals with tractor trailer wrecks; that’s important.

The other thing you have to realize is that you have to preserve the evidence, that’s what your experienced Oklahoma tractor trailer attorney does. They send letters and things to the tractor trailer company saying to preserve this evidence. We need to make sure we know where the witnesses are. We need to make sure where the driver goes. We need to make sure that the witnesses that were at the scene that maybe saw it are identified. If you don’t preserve that evidence, it’s lost. Many times, I’ve not been able to find witnesses because the evidence wasn’t retrieved early on in the case, and it really hurt the value of our case.

Make sure that you don’t try to do it alone. Make sure you don’t fall into the trap that the insurance companies and the trucking companies want you to do. You might think, “Oh, they’re going to be fair with me. I’m going to wait for the first offer and see what it is.”  If you wait to do that without an attorney, you’ve already let the insurance company and the tractor trailer company win. Get somebody who can help you make informed decisions. That’s what lawyers do. They help you make informed decisions. They give you all the information you need to make a good decision. They’ll make you their recommendation; it’s your choice to follow it or not.

How do I pick the best attorney?

When a person’s been involved in a tractor trailer injury case, and is looking for an attorney or trying to find one, that person should be looking for someone who is experienced in handling tractor trailer injury cases, whether it’s a tractor trailer injury case in the city limits or a tractor trailer injury case on the interstate. These cases are technical and you need to make sure your attorney understands all the work involved. They have to have a track record. They have to have handled them and been successful with them. They have to be able to locate experts that will facilitate a full and fair recovery for you. You can’t have somebody who has never handled tractor trailer injury cases before doing this case. You don’t want them cutting their teeth on your case; you want them to be experienced and know exactly what to do and when to do it. Just make sure that you investigate each attorney you talk to and make sure they’re experienced at tractor trailer injury cases.

Should I talk to the insurance company?

In tractor trailer injury cases, I do not recommend that you talk to the trucking company, the trucking company’s attorney, or the trucking company’s insurance adjuster. They are not your friends; they’re not trying to really help you. They’re trying to pay the least amount possible. There are so many things that go into these cases that you need to hire a lawyer or an attorney immediately so you don’t have to worry about those issues.

What mistakes should I avoid?

One of the biggest mistakes that you should avoid after you’re in an injury wreck with a tractor trailer is trying to go it alone. Hire a lawyer immediately. The tractor trailer cases are complicated. There’s a lot of federal regulations and federal laws that must be followed that take a professional and experienced tractor trailer injury attorney to figure those out. Evidence can be lost. You need to get to the scene to make sure that you take pictures, over and above what any law enforcement pictures will be taken. You have to preserve the evidence. The biggest problem I see is waiting to see what the insurance company offers before hiring a lawyer. That is exactly what they want you to do, and that’s why you shouldn’t do it. Hire a lawyer immediately who’s experienced in tractor trailer accident cases.

How much is my case worth?

One of the questions that people ask me often, especially new clients, is, “How much is my tractor trailer injury claim worth?” It’s just not that easy to figure that out. You can’t just give a value, because you don’t know what the case is about yet. Sometimes it will take up to a year to get everything you need to properly evaluate a tractor trailer injury case. Why? Because you have to get information about the truck driver. You have to get information about the trucking company. You have to get information about any truck leasing company. You have to get information about how the truck was maintained. This doesn’t come voluntarily by the trucking company or the trucking company’s insurance company. You have to bring an action and you have to go get that information.

What type of recovery you get on your truck injury case also depends on your injuries. Sometimes it might take a year or two years for us to determine your injuries and how severe they are or if they’re permanent. When people ask what their case is worth, I always tell them, “Look, I can’t tell you right now exactly what your claim is worth, but I can promise you we’ll do all we can to get you a fair, full, and equitable recovery for your case.”

What is the difference between a truck and a car accident?

I’ve been asked many times what the difference is between a tractor trailer injury case and an automobile wreck case is. They have a lot of the similar types of issues, but the tractor trailer injury case is more complicated. The tractor trailer driver is a professional driver. He has a lot more safety rules he has to obey. The tractor trailer insurance company has their own set of lawyers. The rules and laws about tractor trailer companies and their insurance companies are different in the tractor trailer injury case than an automobile wreck case, so you have another one or two attorneys involved.

You have to understand, also, that if a tractor trailer ever runs into a car or a pickup, the tractor trailer’s always going to win. They’re going to win because they weigh30 times more than the average truck or trailer on the road. Make sure that you understand the injuries are more severe, there’s a lot more insurance, there are more attorneys involved, and so it’s a lot more complicated and detailed. You don’t have to worry about that if you hire a lawyer early on in this case. They can help you navigate through this and answer all your questions.

Who is the liable party?

What makes the tractor trailer injury cases so unique and extremely technical is that there are many people that need to be in the lawsuit, if one is filed. You have the tractor trailer driver, the trucking company, or the owner of the truck. In today’s world, many trucks are leased from companies to other companies so that people can have more trucks when they don’t have the capital to buy anymore trucks. You really don’t know all the people involved in a case at first glance. You have to really dig deep. You have to drill for gold. You need to find out who’s really involved in this.

In the laws of Oklahoma, you can even sue the trucking company’s insurance company. In automobile wreck cases, you can’t sue the insurance company, but when you have a commercial policy, with a tractor trailer company, you can bring in your insurance company. As you can imagine, you’re going to have three or four defense attorneys involved, and you have one plaintiff lawyer involved, so you need to hire an attorney up front and quickly so he can prepare for all this litigation that’s coming. You have to be able to preserve the evidence. You have to be able to make sure you find all the right parties. You have to do your investigation. If you have any doubts at all, this is a complicated case, you need to hire an experienced, seasoned tractor trailer injury attorney to handle this.

Should I take a settlement offer?

I’ve had clients ask me, “How long should I take before I hire a lawyer?” or, “How long should I wait to hire a lawyer after I’m involved with a tractor trailer injury case?” My response is always the same: immediately; not three months, not twelve months, and definitely not until the insurance company makes their first offer. Insurance companies always say, “Before you hire a lawyer, will you let me make a first offer? Will you promise me you won’t hire a lawyer until I make my first offer to you? I think we can get this case settled.” That’s exactly the mistake you don’t want to make. The insurance company and the adjuster are not your friends; they’re looking out for number one. They don’t want to pay you a fair settlement.

Hire a lawyer who’s experienced with tractor trailer cases to help you navigate all the twists and turns of a very difficult tractor trailer injury case. Tractor trailer injury cases are complicated because the drivers are held to a higher standard, they have things they have to do, and sometimes it takes a lot of work to find out all the violations of the safety rules tractor trailer drivers make.

How long do I have to file a claim?

In Oklahoma, you have two years to bring your claim and to preserve it. It’s called a two year statute of limitations. Don’t wait two years. Hire a lawyer early on. Help them prepare your case in a way that will give you a fair, fighting chance to get you an equitable claim. Recoveries are difficult with tractor trailer cases, so they need all the information and evidence they can find. Don’t wait; hire a lawyer immediately.

Contact Us Today for a Free Consultation

If you need a strong and dedicated Oklahoma truck accident attorney, please call us today for a free initial consultation.

Motorcycle Accident Lawyers Stillwater, OK

The moments after your motorcycle accident were probably blurred by shock. This is a scary situation and no one who hasn’t gone through it knows how you feel. At Murray Law Firm, we want to say that we are so sorry that this happened to you. You might be in great pain, possibly in the hospital recovering from surgery, and looking how your life may forever be changed. We don’t want to you have to deal with the insurance companies by yourself. They will try to do everything in their power to keep you from getting the compensation you deserve. Our Oklahoma motorcycle accident attorney James Murray is here to help you in this difficult time.

Getting the Right Attorney on Your Case

The right attorney for you will be an experienced Oklahoma motorcycle accident attorney. You want someone who has handled these cases before and knows what they’re doing. If you feel confident that who you are going to hire is competent, it will make for a better situation. You don’t want to go with someone who you think seems inexperienced and unsure. They probably aren’t going to be the right fit for you.

Being able to get along with the attorney also has a great deal to do with picking the right person. You are going to be working with your attorney for some time and if you feel that you can only tolerate them or that you even dislike them, that is going to be an all-around unpleasant situation. You should like the attorney who you hire. If you feel like they are ignoring your calls, or shirking you off onto a layperson in their office, you need to find a new attorney to hire.

Lastly, the right attorney will be dedicated to your case. If they are willing to go all the way to trial, they are going to be able to get you more compensation than someone who wants to get you a lower settlement so that they can just run you through the mill. The insurance companies know which attorney is going to be prepared for trial and which ones are going to cave and take a settlement.

Common Motorcycle Accident Injuries

In motorcycle accidents, you are at risk for a lot of serious injuries due to the fact that you are not protected by the metal framework of a vehicle. While many people are biased against motorcyclist, it is entirely unfair. They will say that, simply because you ride a motorcycle, you are knowingly putting yourself at a risk for injury. It is unreasonable bias that you and your attorney may have to put up with, especially if your case goes to trial and you have to face a jury of people who have this bias. That is why you want an attorney with a lot of experience.

Some common motorcycle accident injuries include:

• Broken bones
• Road burn
• Internal bleeding
• Concussion
• Neck and spine injury
• Death

If your loved one passed away from a motorcycle accident, you may be able to file a wrongful death case and you should contact an attorney as soon as possible.

Motorcycle Accident Compensation

If you are seeking compensation, you should know that the insurance companies do not want to give you the compensation that you deserve.  They probably want to keep you from getting compensation altogether. They will do that by trying to pin the blame on you. Your attorney should be ready to push back and fight to lessen your fault.

If you are determined to be at fault for 50% or more, then you will not be able to get compensation. Therefore, you need to truly trust your attorney’s abilities to protect your rights. You will be able to get compensation for your motorcycle accident claim if you are found to be 49% or less at fault. The way it works is this: If you are 10% at fault, you will be barred from getting that 10% of the claim awards. For example, if you get $20,000 for your claim, you can get 90% of that, or $18,000. This is called modified comparative negligence.

The value of your claim is determined by the severity of your injuries and how long you will be suffering from them. If you cannot return to work, need surgery, have to have physical therapy, etc. all of that will be included while we determine your case value.

Frequently Asked Questions

What if I’m hurt in a motorcycle accident?

If you’re involved in a motorcycle injury wreck and you’re the driver of the motorcycle, the first thing you need to worry about is your health. Make sure you’re checked out. Make sure you get to a doctor. Make sure you follow the doctor’s orders. Make sure you do everything in your power to take care of your injuries and to deal with them. Our goal is to get you back where you were before the wreck.

The second thing you need to do is hire legal representation who’s experienced in motorcycle wrecks. These wrecks usually are pretty tough on motorcyclists. Motorcyclists have nothing to protect them and so when they’re in a wreck, they’re injured pretty seriously. You need to have an investigator investigate the scene, and investigate the other driver. You need to take pictures. You need to preserve witness and get their contact information. More often than not, motorcycle drivers have other things to worry about after a wreck, and that’s why you need to hire a competent, experienced attorney in Oklahoma to help you.

How do I choose the right attorney?

How do you select an attorney to deal with a motorcycle injury case? Well, you need to find an attorney who is experienced in dealing with motorcycle wrecks. You need to find an attorney who understands how important it is to have good healthcare providers and get you to those healthcare providers. You need to find an attorney that understands that you’re going to be laid up for a while and you can’t work, and he has to have some compassion for you. You have to find an attorney who will hire an investigator and work hard for you, do focus groups and make sure that he does everything in his power to frame this case in a way that maximizes your recovery. As you look for attorneys, ask them how many motorcycle wreck cases they’ve handled, ask them how many jury trials they’ve handled, and you need to select the one that has the experience you need and the one that you feel the best about.

What mistakes can I avoid?

Some of the most common mistakes I see motorcycle drivers make when they’re involved in an injury wreck is, first, they do not get to the doctor soon enough or quick enough. They don’t do what the doctor asks them to do. They don’t follow the treatment plan the doctors give them. Many times, these injuries are serious and you need to follow the doctor’s plan. First of all, if you don’t follow the doctor’s plan or recommendations, the insurance company will use that against you when you go for a settlement. Make sure the information you give the medical provider is accurate. Make sure you give them a full history. Don’t try to keep from them that you’ve been in wrecks before and you’ve been injured before; that’s okay. Truth is always the best policy. I would say, and the summary of this one is, get to the doctor, do what they ask you to do, and be totally honest with your doctor.

The second mistake clients make is that they don’t hire a lawyer soon enough, and so motorcycle drivers don’t have the critical information and evidence they need when they try to settle their case or go to trial. If you hire an attorney early on, they have investigators; they can contact all the witnesses, and get statements. They can also preserve their contact information. They are able to take pictures at the scene; they can take pictures of the vehicles. If there are people that have been lost, that saw the wreck, they can find these people and bring them back into the case. Bottom line is to get an attorney hired as soon as you can so you don’t lose any evidence, and you get all the treatments you need, and you can have a successful outcome on your case.

What should I know about motorcycle accident claims?

The differences between a motorcycle injury case and an automobile injury case in Oklahoma are really pretty simple. I think the biggest difference is, more often than not, the injuries sustained by the motorcycle driver is more serious, more substantial, and has a higher rating of being permanent. Motorcycle drivers have no protection, they are out there, so the biggest thing is that you need to hire an attorney to help you get the medical attention you need to deal with your severe injuries.

How do I get compensation?

If you’re in a motorcycle wreck in Oklahoma and you were injured, you’re entitled to your medical expenses, your future and past medical expenses, past and future pain and suffering, any compensation for permanent disability, and permanent impairment. You’re entitled to loss of your ability to live life, to enjoy your passions, to enjoy your hobbies, and to enjoy your family. These cases are usually pretty difficult when there’s serious injuries, so you need to hire a lawyer so he can advise you as to all the possible avenues of recovery and the damages you can ask for.

Should I talk to the insurance company?

I’ve been asked more than once, “What do I do when the insurance company calls me and asks for a statement?” Well, the first thing you need to know is don’t give them the statement. The second thing you need to do is hire a lawyer and refer the insurance adjuster or the insurance company to your attorney. As soon as you tell the insurance company you have an attorney, they will not ever call you back. You don’t want to run the risk of saying something or giving them a statement that will jeopardize your ability to a full, fair, and equitable settlement.

If you think the insurance company is your friend, you’re sadly mistaken. You have to understand; their job is to pay you as little as possible to resolve the claim. I would suggest you hire an experienced injury attorney to handle all your calls and all your correspondence with the insurance company.

What if I wasn’t wearing a helmet?

Another common question I receive with motorcycle wrecks is, “I wasn’t wearing a helmet. Does that make me at fault if I sustained a brain injury?” My response to that is a jury is going to hear the evidence. The jury understands motorcycles; they understand helmets. It’s going to be whether or not the driver of the motorcycle contributed to this injury because he didn’t have a helmet on. That’s a question of fact for the jury. You’re not barred for bringing a lawsuit just because you didn’t have your helmet on. I would suspect that we would have to have a focus group determine, given the facts of your case, what a jury thinks about whether you had a helmet on or you didn’t have a helmet on. Don’t wait to hire an attorney. We need to get to a focus group early on to see what eight or nine people think about your case.

What if a hazardous road caused my injury?

If you’re involved in a motorcycle wreck and you believe part of it is due to a poorly maintained road, either city or county road, do you have a claim? I believe you do have a claim, but it takes a lot of work to get there. You need to hire a lawyer quickly to investigate how many wrecks were in that same area, maybe that same corner, maybe that same exact place where there was a defective roadway. The county or the city have responsibilities to maintain the roads. You need to hire a lawyer to investigate this, to determine if the city had notice, if the county had notice of a dangerous roadway. How many wrecks have occurred there, and how many injuries occurred at this same location? You do have a claim, but it’s not going to come easy. You’re going to have to do a lot of background work, a lot of leg work, and you have to hire the right attorney to do the investigation to determine what type of claim you may have.

What if I was run off the road?

If you’re forced off a roadway by a reckless and negligent driver of a vehicle, you do have a claim against them. The biggest problem we have is that many times you can’t find the person who forced you off the road because you were being safety-conscious by making proper maneuvers to avoid the collision, and it leads you to be in a tough situation off the road. You do have a claim. Again, hire an attorney as soon as you can so they can attempt to find witnesses who saw the event and identify the person who caused you and forced you off the road. Hopefully, we can find those people and we can have a fair and equitable settlement.

What if I was just the passenger in a crash?

If you’re in a motorcycle injury wreck, and you were a passenger on the back of the driver of the motorcycle, you have a claim, not only against the car or vehicle that might have helped this accident happen or ran into you, but you also might have a claim against the driver of the motorcycle, if they were driving the motorcycle in a reckless or negligent matter. These are difficult cases. Sometimes the people you’re riding with are close friends or family, and so I would suggest you hire an attorney as soon as you can to be able to help you understand your rights and be able to make the right decision on how to handle the claim against multiple parties.

Contact Our Stillwater, OK Motorcycle Accident Attorney Today

Attorney James Murray will be there for you through your whole legal process. If you want our dedicated support, please call our Stillwater office today for a free consultation. You don’t have to settle for a low settlement offer, let us take your case as far as it needs to go to get you the compensation you deserve.

Slip and Fall Lawyers Stillwater, OK

Injuring yourself in a slip and fall accident can feel frustrating and maybe even a little embarrassing. These are usually completely avoidable accidents that can result in some serious injuries. If you were seriously hurt in a slip and fall accident, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries.

Our Oklahoma slip and fall lawyer James Murray can help you seek this compensation. If you have any questions, please call our Stillwater office today for a free consultation.

Overview of Slip and Fall Injuries

First and foremost, in order to be able to bring a claim, your injury needs to have been due to the negligence of others. If you were at the grocery store and you were on your phone, wearing flip flops and not paying attention to your environment, you might be determined to be at fault for your slip and fall. The insurance company will argue that if you were in proper footwear, and you weren’t on your phone, you may have seen the hazard that made you slip and fall and hurt yourself. However, you may certainly be eligible for a claim if you were turning the corner at the store and fell on a spill that no one had cleaned up yet.

You may be wondering if a warning sign matters in your case. This will vary case to case. If the sign was found to be unhelpful, the sign will not matter. For instance, if someone placed a wet floor sign in a hallway, and you came in from an entrance where the sign wasn’t visible, you won’t be liable for that accident. Proving that the property owner was at fault for this accident is going to be key for getting compensation. Whether this accident was at someone’s house, or at a big chain restaurant, you will have to prove negligence. The owner of the property would have had to have been aware of the hazard and done minimal effort or none at all to be found liable.

Your case value can be determined by the extent of your injuries. Some common slip and fall injuries include:

• Broken bones
• Concussions
• Lacerations and abrasions
• Bruising
• Spinal cord injuries

You very well may have sustained more than one of these injuries. All of this comes into play with how much you can be compensated for. If you had to miss out on work, needed surgery, couldn’t perform household chores, couldn’t drive yourself, or required physical therapy, all of this will increase the value of your claim.

Comparative Negligence State

The insurance companies will try everything that they can in order to pin the blame on you. It can be quite frustrating especially when you know that you were not to blame for this accident. To avoid having the blame placed on you, it’s so important to be cautious when you’re talking to the insurance company. They will call you and they may even try to come see you in the hospital. It is crucial to your case that you do not give them any statements. They are trained to ask you questions that will incriminate yourself. You have to be so careful. If they call you, tell them that you will be acquiring council and call communications can go through your lawyer.

If you are pinned with fault, it will affect your ability to collect compensation. Oklahoma follows the rules of comparative negligence. If you are found to be more at fault than the other party, you won’t be able to get any compensation at all. That is why it is so important that you get a good attorney on the case, so that they won’t let the insurance companies take advantage of you. Don’t be discouraged by these rules. You can get compensation if you are found to be at fault for 49% or less. For instance, you can get $9,000 of $10,000 of your award if you were only found to be 10% at fault. Your attorney will fight to have you determined as little at fault as possible.

Filing Your Claim on Time

There are many things to think about with a slip and fall claim, but the most important one of all is getting the claim filed on time. From the date of the accident, according to Oklahoma statutes, you have two years to file. Now, if you wait a year and 364 days to finally contact an attorney, you may be out of luck. There are steps that need to be taken before all the paperwork will be filed and evidence gathered, etc. It certainly is a process. Therefore, you need to give your Oklahoma slip and fall lawyer some time to get everything that they need together.

How do I pick the right attorney for my case?

When you look for an attorney for a slip and fall injury case, you need to find an attorney who is experienced in this area, who has a track record, who takes on the insurance companies on a regular basis, and who has trial experience. You need to hire an attorney who can get you to the professionals you need, who seems to understand the kind of experts they need to hire and has the ability to do so. You need to hire an attorney that you get along well with, an attorney you believe cares about your situation. You need to go with your gut. You need to go with someone that will be your champion and will be able to take your case all the way to trial if need be.

What mistakes can I avoid?

The most common mistake I see when people who have been injured in a slip and fall are one, they think it’s their fault. They think they’re clumsy. They don’t think that they shouldn’t say anything to the store owner or the person that owns the property. That’s just not true. You need to make sure you contact an attorney and help them understand what happened and what the circumstances were like. In a lot of cases, it’s not the person’s fault that slipped, fell, and got hurt; it’s the premises owner who didn’t keep a safe and orderly floor plan out there. Don’t think it’s your fault.

The second mistake people make in a slip and fall injury case is they don’t seek medical treatment soon enough and if they do seek medical treatment, they don’t do what the doctor asks them to do because they don’t think they have time or they can’t afford it. Doctors professionals. When you see a doctor, follow their advice. If you don’t, it will come back on you when you try to negotiate your case or you try to go to trial with your case.

The third mistake clients make is they don’t hire attorneys soon enough and so a lot of the evidence is gone. The store might be remodeled. The event, device, or structure that caused the slip and fall might be gone now, might be disappeared, might be fixed, and so you can’t take good pictures of really what happened to show a jury. Hire an attorney. Select an attorney and let them take care of the investigation, the preservation of evidence, and help them orchestrate this case for you and direct you in the right ways.

What if I fall on faulty handrails?

If you’re visiting a store, and you believe that a handrail was faulty and gave way or caused you to become unstable, and you slipped and fell, what you really need to do, first of all, is make sure you file an incident report Make sure you give them notice. Make sure you take pictures. Make sure you preserve the evidence. Make sure that you contact an attorney to help you do the investigation. Attorneys have investigators that go out and will take an extensive number of pictures, interview any witnesses, and make sure they preserve the witnesses names, addresses, and contact information.

The attorney can also find an expert on handrails or other types of devices, in a commercial setting or a home/residential setting, to determine if the handrails were properly designed, properly installed, and if they meet code of the city or the municipality that you live in. As you see, the real key here is hiring an attorney early on so you make good and informed decisions. You can’t roll back time so you can find witnesses and evidence because in these types of cases, the evidence disappears very quickly when things are fixed or removed.

What if I fall on faulty steps?

If you have a slip and fall case and you think it might be faulty steps, to determine whether or not you have a claim, you need to have an expert or somebody who understands construction help you. They should know what the appropriate codes are, how long the steps should be, what the elevation is, how wide they should be, or if they have the right slip-proof covering. To find those is difficult. However, if you hire an attorney early on, they have access to these kind of experts and they can hire experts to look at this case and determine if you have a claim for faulty or inadequately constructed steps. What you don’t want to do is just assume that you can’t, and do nothing, and then you’re in trouble because the evidence might not be preserved, you might not be able to find the witnesses, and then you have no claim at all.

Does it matter that there was a warning sign for slippery floors?

One of the questions that comes up regularly is, “I slipped and fell, but there was a warning sign that said it was slippery. How does that impact the claim for personal injury?” Well, it definitely is something to think about. You have to take pictures of where it was. Was it in a good location? Was it properly located? Could you see it from the traffic direction you were coming from? Was it hidden? These are all factors you have to consider. Just because there’s a warning sign, doesn’t mean it was effectively posted and you were able to see it.

You need to hire an attorney because there are experts that do this for a living. They design these things; they train people on how to put up these warning signs. If the warning sign wasn’t put up properly and it was obscured in any way, that is not a bar for your recovery. I would suggest that if you have a situation like this, after you go see the doctor and follow his counsel, you hire an attorney immediately to investigate this case and get their professionals to look at the dynamics and the factual pattern of this, and make a determination for you.

How do we prove who was at fault?

A lot of times in slip and fall cases, there aren’t any witnesses. It’s just one person – you – in a store, on a sidewalk, and you slip and fall and hurt yourself. No one sees it. You go immediately and you make an incident report that you fell. The only way to prove this – that it was not your fault; it was the fault of somebody else – is your testimony and it’s also preserving any evidence there is, whether it’s taking pictures of the surface that day, or shortly thereafter. I would suggest that if you’re ever involved in a slip and fall incident, you take pictures immediately with your phone, or have your family members do it, or even have the store take pictures for you because the condition at the time of the slip and fall or the incident that causes problems is extremely important.

What if I fall on residential property?

If you’re injured at a residential house or home, what should you do once this happens? What are the steps you need to take? The first step you need to do is you need to get to a doctor. You need to go and get checked out by a healthcare professional and not only be checked out, but follow their advice. If they want you to see a specialist, go to a specialist. If they want you to stay in bed, stay in bed. Don’t disregard what they want you to do because they have your best interest at heart; they want you to get healthy and so do we. There’s no amount of money you can recover that can be exchanged for your health.

The second thing you need to do is make sure you know the name, address, and phone number of the person’s house that you were injured at. You have to understand how you were injured and why you were injured. The third thing you need to do is contact an attorney. Get this information to them, tell them what happened, and let them do the investigation. Let them find out what happened. Let them take the pictures, preserve the evidence. Let them contact the insurance company. Don’t give any statements to the insurance company. That can only hurt you; it can never help you. Those are the three big things you need to do.

What if I fall on city property?

The question often comes to me about suing a city, municipality, or school if the sidewalks or curbs are not in good repair, or they have some unique construction problems. The answer is yes, you can sue a municipality or school. However, you need to determine that they had notice of these problems and they haven’t fixed them, that these various issues with construction and maintaining of sidewalks/curbs had been brought to their attention and they failed to act, that there’s been other injuries there, that they’re unsafe for the public.

Again, if you hire an attorney early on in the case, he can hire experts that will have this knowledge. They can look at situations. They can take pictures of the evidence and preserve it, whether it’s potholes, cracks, or uneven concrete. Whatever it is, they can make a determination. If they determine that the city, school, or municipality was negligent in failing to maintain or construct these types of structures, then you do have a claim.

How much is my case worth?

Clients ask me on a regular basis, “What’s the value of this slip and fall case?” Those questions can’t be answered in a single sentence. It takes time to understand all the facts and the issues of your case to put a value on it. We need to know how serious your injuries are. Will you ever be able to function at the level you did before? Can you still enjoy your family? Can you still enjoy your passions or your hobbies? These are all things that have to be determined.

Another thing that has to be determined is the defendant – the store owner, the city, or whoever caused the slip and fall. What’s their behavior been like? Has this happened four or five times last week at the same place, and they’ve never fixed it? These are things that have to be determined. There’s no quick answer on how much your case it worth for these reasons.

How long will my case take?

People often ask, “How long will a slip and fall case take to finish and get money?” I can’t answer that question because there are so many factors involved. One is how long it will take you to heal, how long it will take us to evaluate your case, how long it will take us to get all the evidence we need to look at, and where all the witnesses are. We have to do all the initial stuff first. Second, we don’t know if the insurance company is going to be reasonable and offer a reasonable settlement offer. If they don’t, then we have to file a lawsuit. If we file a lawsuit, then it’s a whole other situation. We have defense lawyers, maybe several, to deal with. We have a court system that we have to get a jury trial date, and we don’t always get exactly what we want when we want. It can take several years to resolve this case at the end, but if you hire an attorney early, you have a better chance of getting this thing started quicker and ending sooner.

What are slip and fall statute of limitations?

If you’re involved in a slip and fall, or any type of situation on a premise of a store or anything, you have a two year statute of limitations to bring your case or settle your case. My counsel to you is not to wait until the last minute to make decisions. You don’t want to feel rushed. You don’t want to make quick decisions without time to think about it properly. If you hire an attorney early on in your case, when you have a slip and fall injury or any type of injury on premise, then this attorney can take care of all the investigation, and preserve the evidence. They can deal with all the issues. They can deal with the insurance company, and you won’t put yourself in a situation where you might say something or do something that may be detrimental to your case. I would suggest that you hire an attorney and let them worry about when and how to do things.

Contact Our Oklahoma Slip and Fall Lawyer Today

You deserve compensation. Don’t let the insurance company bully you out of getting what you deserve. Call James Murray of Murray Law Firm today for a free consultation. You need an experienced attorney at your side.

Pedestrian Accident Lawyers Stillwater, OK

If you have been hit by a car while you were walking or running, we first want to express how sorry we are that you have to suffer due to someone else’s negligence. No one deserves to have their life turned in its head because a driver had to finish a text and didn’t deign to look up to see you in the road. Here at Murray Law Firm, we want you to feel supported in your quest to receive full and fair compensation for your damages.

Understanding Pedestrian Accident Causes and Compensation

When someone is found liable, they are determined to have caused the pedestrian accident and will have to provide your compensation. In these particular cases, there are two possible liable parties; the pedestrian or the driver. More often than not, it is the driver of the vehicle that hit you. More commonly, we find that the pedestrian is not at fault.

Most accidents of this nature occur in crosswalks. These are areas where one would expect to find someone crossing the road hoping not to get run over. In less common accidents, a pedestrian may be found at fault for the accident if they crossed the road somewhere other than a crosswalk, and they did not look to see if traffic was coming.

Causes

Common reasons for pedestrian accidents include:

• Cell Phone use. This is either when the driver illegally using their cellphone to search the web, send a text, or watch a video, or if it is the pedestrian who did not look up from their phone to check for traffic before crossing the street.
• Sometimes a driver may have seen you too late before they run into you because they were going too fast and did not have time to put their brakes on. That accident would not be the fault of the pedestrian if they took all necessary precautions before crossing.
• Running stop lights/ stop signs. When a driver fails to yield, stop, or wait for a green light, they may cause a pedestrian accident.
• Failing to use a turn signal. If a driver is going to turn, but does not use their signal, you may have looked at that car coming down the road and thought it safe to cross the street because they were going to be going straight, but they end up hitting you.
• Disregarding weather conditions. If it is a rainy day, and the driver is not adjusting their speed for the weather, they may hydroplane when they slam on their brakes and hit you because they were being negligent.

Compensation

As you may have already gathered, these accidents are entirely avoidable. The only reason they happen is because someone was acting negligently. Our job as Oklahoma personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK is to find out who is liable and how much of the accident they are liable for. The insurance adjuster’s job is to determine that you are entirely at fault and should not receive compensation for this accident.

Oklahoma is a “shared fault” state, meaning that the insurance adjuster has to find you 50% or more at fault in order to keep you from receiving compensation. We will fight them on that. We want to make sure they do not take advantage of you.

What you should also know about shared fault is that you can receive compensation if you’re at fault, it just needs to be less than 50%. The only downside of being found at fault from 1% – 49% is that you will have your award reduced by the percent you were found at fault for. Let’s say you were found to be 10% at fault. If you are awarded $100,000, you will have that reduced to $90,000. That is why it is so very important that you have an attorney.

Dealing with Insurance Companies

As previously mentioned, the insurance company wants to keep you from getting rightful compensation. Our mission is to protect you from their tactics. They will try to reach out to you after the accident. They know you’re probably in bad condition and you may be getting pain medicine in the hospital, but they’re not worried about what state of mind you’re in. They only care that they can get a statement from you. In that statement, they’re hoping you’ll say something that they can use against you later on. If you answer the phone and are polite and say, “I’m good,” when they ask, “How are you?” They’re going to take that as in you are healthy and well and don’t need compensation. Even if you were just getting out of surgery when you said that, they’re going to try to use that against you. When they come calling, you should already have an attorney. You can give them your attorney’s information and tell them that your attorney will be taking all communications.

In rare instances will the insurance companies offer you a fair settlement offer right off the bat. They may call you and ask you not to seek representation. They’ll offer to give you a settlement if you don’t hire an attorney. That’s a trick you need to avoid. Don’t play into that. Let your attorney help you decide if the first offer they come up with is fair. More often than not, it’s a pittance.

Taking the Right Steps

Of course, the most important thing to do after an accident is get to a medical professional as soon as possible. You may be in bad condition and require an ambulance. Don’t resist getting on the ambulance if you’re in pain. This will be the best move you can make for yourself and your safety. If you are seriously injured, but not in critical condition, make sure you see a doctor shortly after the accident. You may not need the ambulance ride, but go to an Urgent Care center to get your injuries looked at and documented. Having these injuries properly recorded will help us to make a full recovery in your pedestrian accident claim.

Next, if you are able to, collect evidence from the scene of the crash. Take pictures of everything. Take a video of the scene in its entirety. Talk to witnesses and get their contact information. Get the contact information and insurance information from the driver who hit you as well. All of this will be crucial evidence in our claim.

Last, make sure you see an attorney as soon as possible. In Oklahoma, you have two years from the date of the accident to file your claim or settle your claim. I would highly advise that you do not wait out this statute of limitations. If you come to us with a week left, there’s nothing we can do to help you. There are critical steps we as attorneys need to take in order to build a strong case for you. We need time to do so.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do I do if I was hit by a car while walking?

If you are a pedestrian and you are hit by a vehicle of any kind, the first thing you need to do is have someone call the police, and then you need to get your proper medical attention. The reason you need to do these first two things is one, you need to preserve the evidence. Obviously, law enforcement will show up, and they will get ahold of the vehicle that ran into you and get that information. More often than not, again, you’re going to be on the bad side of this wreck because you’re a pedestrian unprotected, and a car hits you and you probably don’t see it, and so your injuries may be extensive. Those are the two things you really need to do. The last thing you need to do is you need to hire an attorney to help you deal with this and to do the investigation, preserve the evidence, preserve the witnesses, so you can have a successful claim against the driver who ran over you.

How do I know I have the right attorney?

One of the things you need to do when you’re a pedestrian and you’re involved in a wreck is you need to hire an personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK quickly. The question is, how do I go about hiring the right attorney? You need to hire an attorney who has experience with pedestrian wrecks. You need to find an attorney you feel comfortable with, that understands you, that will talk to you and listen to you. You need to hire an Oklahoma personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK that will help you through this journey, to get you the competent medical treatment you need, to help you get to the specialist you need, and do everything in their power to help you get your health back. It’s not always easy to figure those things out, so you need to do your own research. You need to meet with several personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK and you need to make a gut feeling what you think is the best for you and more often than not, your gut feeling is the right decision.

What mistakes should I avoid?

The most common pedestrians make when they’re in a wreck with a vehicle is one, either they don’t seek treatment soon enough or they seek the wrong treatment, or they don’t follow the doctor’s advice and their treatment plan. My advice is to seek out medical treatment immediately from a competent physician. I want you to do exactly what the doctor asks you to do. If you don’t, the insurance companies may use that as leveraging you, take out a settlement, or mediation or even a trial.

The second mistake pedestrians make is they don’t hire personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK soon enough to help them investigate the case, preserve the evidence, and to help them deal with the insurance company. Insurance companies look for reasons to help you believe you need to sell your case when you don’t have to, so don’t give the insurance any power over you. You do that by hiring an personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK direct all phone calls and correspondence to your personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK which will protect you from insurance companies trying to trick you into selling your case.

What is the difference between a car accident claim and a pedestrian accident claim?

There’s not a lot of difference. Pedestrians still have special duties. They need to be in crosswalks, but that, again, doesn’t completely eliminate a claim if you’re not in the crosswalk. There are specific traffic obligations, rules that a pedestrian must follow as well as a car, so if either side violates any safety rules, then there’s going to have to be some type of accountability there. More often than not, the injuries of a pedestrian are more serious than injuries of an occupant of a vehicle.

What compensation can I get?

If you were a pedestrian and you were injured by a vehicle, what types of damages and claims can you have? Well obviously, you can get your medical bills, your future and past medical bills. You can get pain and suffering, future and past. You can get your lost wages. You can get any type of compensation for permanent impairment or disability. You can get compensation for the loss of your hobbies, loss of enjoying your family. If you can’t return to your same lifestyle you had before, because of any physical deficiencies caused by this wreck, then you definitely can receive some type of consideration for those as well. To know all of the rights you have for your specific case, I would suggest you contact personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK who has experience in pedestrian wrecks.

Who is the liable party for my accident?

In a pedestrian vehicle claim, the fact pattern will dictate who was at fault or who is majority at fault. If a pedestrian’s in a crosswalk and he has a go light or a little sign that says you can walk, he is clearly within his right to be able to walk across the street without being hit by a car, and there, clearly, the vehicle would be at fault. However, there are cases where pedestrians don’t use crosswalks and it is fact- dependent on who might be responsible in those situations.

You need to hire an personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK who can investigate the case and determine if you crossed the street, and you’re not in the crosswalk, and you’re hit by a vehicle, are you partially responsible for the wreck or not? Again, it all depends on the facts. It depends on what the driver of the vehicle is doing, what the pedestrian is doing. Were they distracted? Were they listening to music on headsets? I would suggest that if you’re in a wreck and you’re a pedestrian, and the car hit you, and you’re not in a crosswalk, I would suggest you contact an personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK immediately to do an investigation, so they can determine the type of claim you may have.

What if I was involved in a hit and run? Can I still get compensation?

If you’re a pedestrian and you’re hit by a driver, and the driver drives away and doesn’t stop, and no one sees him, you still have a claim. The problem is who to make your claim against. If you can never find the driver of the car that hit you, then you need to hire an personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK or an investigator to see if they can find this person by running ads in the paper or doing radio spots. You need to call the police and see if they can help you with their investigative techniques. They can look at cameras and various things in the neighborhood, see if they can see a vehicle leave at that particular time. Try to remember the information or detail or description of the vehicle; that will help in finding the vehicle that caused the wreck.

The other place you can get recovery is from your own insurance company. If you have some type of insurance coverage on your car, it might be available to make a recovery from, but that again is something depending on your policy, how it’s written. You need to really seek legal counsel who people have experienced with dealing with pedestrian wrecks to determine that.

What if I was partially to blame for the accident?

If you’re involved in a pedestrian car wreck, and you’re the pedestrian, and some of the fault is yours, the big question people always have for me is, “Can I still bring an action? Do I have any claim against the vehicle?” The answer is yes. As long as you’re 50% or less at fault, then you can make a claim and receive compensation from the person involved in the wreck with you. It’s a situation where you need to hire personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK to do investigation and preserve evidence so we can really present the evidence we need to a jury or an insurance adjuster at some point in time.

Another way I find really helpful is to show information, show pictures, show statements to a focus group, and have them help us determine what percent fault would be assigned to the pedestrian and what percent fault would be assigned to the vehicle.

Contact Our Office Today

If you know you need an experienced personal injury attorneys in Stillwater, OK, please call our office today for a free consultation. We want to protect you from the tactics the insurance companies use, and we will fight tirelessly to get you the compensation you rightfully deserve.