Cumberland, MD Car Accident Lawyer

Car crashes, sadly, are a daily occurrence in the US. People are often seriously injured and incur significant medical expenses brought on by treating their injuries. Worse still, the mental toll of a car accident can far outlast many physical injuries that victims receive, so it is often the case that victims of car crashes have their lives altered forever.

Call us if you were hurt in a car crash in or around Cumberland. We have handled hundreds of these cases, so we know how to effectively fight for you and the financial compensation you need after getting hurt in a car crash.

Dial (410) 694-7291 and talk to our team of car accident attorneys from Rice, Murtha & Psoras today.

Who Can You Sue in Cumberland, MD Car Accident Lawsuits?

An important thing for you and our car accident attorneys to figure out when building your case is what parties are going to be defendants in your claim. This is critical to your case because you must prove that the defendant was negligent and caused your injuries in order to win. Thus, you should only sue parties who you can prove had a hand in causing your car crash.

Other Drivers

You will nearly always want to sue the other driver who hit you, as they are often at least partially responsible for your injuries. Drivers can be negligent in two main ways. First, they can violate traffic laws, like going over the speed limit or driving drunk. Second, they can act in a way that no reasonable driver would do under the circumstances. The jury determines whether a driver was negligent in the latter fashion, so our lawyers will work hard to ensure that the jury understands that the driver who hit you acted unreasonably.

Employers/Companies

Sometimes, you will be able to sue someone’s employer for injuries you sustained in a car accident. This usually happens when someone driving a company vehicle injures someone. For example, suppose a pizza delivery driver hits you on the way to deliver an order. In that case, their employer would be liable for your injuries. The “catch,” though, is that the employee has to be doing something sufficiently related to their job when they hurt you. So, if that same pizza delivery driver was on their way to their friend’s house when they were supposed to be delivering an order, their employer would probably not be liable because what the driver was doing was not related to their job of delivering an order.

Vehicle Designers and Manufacturers

Problems with cars cause accidents all the time. Faulty brakes and other defective parts can all lead to crashes, even when the driver is doing nothing wrong. When a car accident happens because a vehicle is defective, you can sue the party responsible for the defect. Who you sue will depend on where the defect popped up. For example, you would sue the car designer if the problem is inherent in the car’s design. On the other hand, if the problem arose out of a bad repair job, you would sue the repair shop that worked on the car or another entity.

Government Entities

In some cases, you may want to sue a government entity for your injuries. Usually, this happens because the plaintiff believes that a state or local entity was tasked with keeping roads in good order, but that entity did not do so, and because of that neglect, the plaintiff got in a car accident. Note that our lawyers will need to follow some special rules for suing government entities, so you should discuss the prospect of including them as defendants early on in discussions about your claim.

What Can I Get in Cumberland, MD Car Accident Cases?

If you prove that the defendant was negligent and liable for your injuries, the court awards you damages. Damages are how courts attempt to “turn back the clock” for the plaintiff and get things as close as possible to how they were prior to the accident taking place. Damages are pretty much always financial compensation because it is impossible to literally undo a car crash.

Compensatory Damages

Compensatory damages are the damages designed to make you “whole” again. They are based on the unique facts and circumstances of your situation. Therefore, they are not going to match the damages that another plaintiff got in their lawsuit.

You can get compensatory damages for items like medical expenses, lost wages, and property damage. To demonstrate the value of these things, you can submit evidence like paychecks and invoices from hospitals or repair shops. Essentially, anything that helps prove the expenses you incurred because of the car crash will be useful as evidence to back up your claim for damages.

You can also get compensatory damages for things that may not have a paper trail behind them. Indeed, things like emotional distress and mental anguish are very real but will not have a fixed value placed on them by a financial institution. Instead, you and our lawyers will have to convey their value to the court so you get appropriate financial compensation.

Punitive Damages

In contrast to compensatory damages, punitive damages stem from the defendant’s conduct, not your condition. These damages are designed to punish defendants who have done things that go above and beyond ordinary negligence. Thus, it does not always make sense to go after them in every case. To determine whether seeking punitive damages is a good idea in your claim, you should discuss it with our attorneys.

Contact Our Cumberland, MD Car Accident Attorneys Now

Contact Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s car accident attorneys and discuss your case today by dialing (410) 694-7291.