Mount Pleasant, SC Bus Accident Lawyer

Injuries in bus accidents tend to be severe, often because of the sheer size of the bus. Victims are often left with severe injuries and expensive damages they cannot afford. These damages are related to monetary expenses like hospital bills, and they may also include non-economic injuries like physical pain or mental trauma. If this sounds like your situation, you should contact our attorneys about suing for fair compensation.

To start your case, we should first determine who is responsible for causing the accident. While people are quick to blame bus drivers, they might not be the only ones at fault. Bus companies may be held liable for their employee’s negligence, and additional third parties or even governmental entities might be implicated, too. To start your lawsuit, we need to prepare and file a formal complaint, which might take some time to prepare. Getting started as soon as possible is best because you have a limited time to file your case.

Get a free, private case evaluation from our bus accident attorneys by calling Rice, Murtha & Psoras at (803) 219-4906.

Damages Available in a Mount Pleasant, SC Bus Accident Case

Many of your damages are likely going to be measured in money. However, other damages are not always related to financial costs but instead to your subjective experiences. Evaluating damages can be challenging, especially if you have a lot of them, and you do not want to risk losing compensation because certain damages were overlooked.

We can start calculating your damages by reviewing how much the bus accident cost you. If you were injured, you should have gotten emergency medical care, which was probably expensive. Health care is notoriously costly, and the more serious your injuries, the higher your hospital bills.

We should also think about how the bus accident and your injuries interfere with your job. If you took time away from work and were not being paid, you should be able to recoup your lost wages. Talk to our bus accident lawyers about how much money you normally earn through work, and we will help you determine how much income you lost because of the bus accident.

If you lost any property, add it to your damages. For example, if you were driving your own car when you were hit by a bus, we can add the cost of repairing or replacing your car to your damages. If you were a passenger on the bus, we can evaluate the cost of damaged personal items.

Non-economic injuries are a little harder to evaluate. These damages are inherently subjective, and different plaintiffs might experience them in different ways. Your physical pain, psychological distress, humiliation, and the overall decline in your quality of life might all be factored into your non-economic damages. The jury usually decides what they are worth, so we must have evidence clearly showing how much you suffered.

Determining Who to Sue for a Bus Crash in Mount Pleasant, SC

One of the most challenging parts of preparing a lawsuit for a bus accident is figuring out who to name in the case. These kinds of accidents tend to involve various people and drivers, and more than one might be at fault.

Bus Drivers

Naturally, we should scrutinize the bus driver’s behavior leading up to the crash, as they will likely bear much of the blame. One common example of bus driver negligence is being distracted behind the wheel. Perhaps the bus driver was on their phone or preoccupied with a passenger. The next thing they know, the bus has crashed, and people are hurt.

Another possibility is that the bus driver was going way too fast. Buses are very large and heavy and cannot slow down as quickly as other smaller cars. If a bus driver is speeding and suddenly has to hit the brakes, they might hit the vehicles in front of them or cause the bus to swerve into traffic.

Bus Companies

Bus drivers are not the only ones who may be held responsible for an accident. Their employers, the bus companies, might also bear some blame. If the bus driver caused the collision while in furtherance of their normal job duties, their employer may be held vicariously liable. The issue becomes a bit more complicated when bus drivers misbehave in ways that are outside their normal job duties, such as road rage. You should still ask an attorney whether suing the bus company is possible.

Public Entities

When people think of buses, they often think of public transportation. In Mount Pleasant, people may ride public buses operated by the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA). If you are injured in an accident with a CARTA bus, you should talk to a lawyer about suing CARTA for your damages.

Filing a case against a governmental entity is a bit more complicated than ordinary injury cases. Under S.C. Code Ann. § 15-78-80(d), a verified claim against the government must be filed with the appropriate entity or agency no less than 1 year after the accident. Under § 15-78-80(e), after you have filed the claims, the government has 180 days to respond, either allowing or disallowing the claims. We can file the lawsuit once the government responds or 180 days have passed.

How to Begin a Lawsuit for a Bus Accident in Mount Pleasant, SC

Many of us have probably heard about people filing lawsuits but never actually done so ourselves. Plaintiffs are sometimes surprised to learn that the process is not always as simple as filing paperwork, although filing legal documents is important. A lawsuit begins with the drafting of a formal complaint.

The complaint must contain a lot of information, and all the details should be as clear and specific as possible. We might need to take some time to gather all the necessary information before we sit down to draft the complaint. Details should include information about you, the defendant, how the bus accident happened, why we believe the defendant is responsible, and your damages.

We also need to include information about evidence in the complaint. We only need enough evidence to show the court that you have a valid cause of action. We do not have to have all the evidence to meet our burden of proof, at least not just yet.

Get in Touch with Our Bus Accident Lawyers in Mount Pleasant for Help

Get a free, private case evaluation from our bus accident attorneys by calling Rice, Murtha & Psoras at (803) 219-4906.