Savannah, GA Motorcycle Accident Lawyer

Motorcycle crashes, collisions, and other accidents can result in extremely serious injuries and hefty financial costs. An injured motorcyclist may have to undergo surgery, physical therapy, change jobs, or pay for a new ride, all because someone else was careless at an inopportune moment. This can be incredibly frustrating and demoralizing for the victim of the crash.

Luckily, our lawyers can help you. We can handle all of the legal issues in your case while you focus on recovering from your injuries and getting on with your life.

For free case analysis from our motorcycle accident attorneys, call Rice, Murtha & Psoras by dialing (470) 287-3070.

Potential Defendants in Motorcycle Accident Lawsuits in Savannah, GA

A very important part of a motorcycle accident lawsuit is making sure that you and our motorcycle accident attorneys sue the right parties. You can only recover damages from defendant’s that caused your injuries, so it is good practice to put some effort into determining what role every involved party had the accident so you can sue the right ones and leave the others alone.

Other Drivers

You will almost always want to sue the driver who struck you in your accident. They are one of the most likely parties to be negligent and contribute to your injuries. Drivers can be negligent in a lot of different ways, like driving under the influence, speeding, ignoring stop signs, and more.

Vehicle Designers and Manufacturers

If problems with your motorcycle or another vehicle contributed to your accident, you could sue vehicle designers and manufacturers, depending on where in the process the defect arose. For example, if the problem is inherent in the vehicle’s design, you would sue the designer, while if the problem is from a mistake made when building the vehicle, the manufacturer would be the correct party to include as a defendant.

Government Entities

Sometimes, you may want to sue a government entity in your claim. Usually, this comes up when poor conditions on a road a local or state entity is meant to maintain cause an accident. There are some extra rules that need to be followed for suing government entities, so you should discuss the prospect of suing them with our attorneys early on in your claim.

Damages in Motorcycle Claims in Savannah, GA

When you sue someone after you are injured, you do so seeking damages. “Damages” are the court’s way of trying to “turn back the clock” on events and return the plaintiff to where they were prior to getting injured. Of course, depending on the plaintiff’s injuries, this may not be literally possible, so financial compensation is the form that damages take.

Compensatory Damages

Compensatory damages are meant to “make you whole” again. These include medical expenses, repair costs for your bike, and lost income, as well as more esoteric things like “mental anguish” or “pain and suffering.”

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages are different from compensatory damages in that they are not based on your condition but on the defendant’s actions. You must request punitive damages in your initial filings in order to be eligible for them, and you also must prove more than mere negligence, so you should discuss your claim with our attorneys to determine whether requesting punitive damages makes sense for you.

Calculating Damages in Savannah, GA Motorcycle Accident Cases

When you request damages in your claim, you have to specify the amount you are seeking. While there is no standardized method used by attorneys to calculate damages, two of the most commonly used methods are the multiplier method and the “per diem” method.

The Multiplier Method

The multiplier method takes your economic damages and multiples them by a given factor you and our lawyers decide on. For example, if you had $100,000 in economic damages and the decided-upon factor is 5, you would be requesting $500,000 in non-economic damages for a total of $600,000 in compensatory damages. The multiplier method is most often used when the plaintiff is expected to be dealing with their injuries in some form for the rest of their life, so it is not unusual for the amounts sought to be rather high.

The Per Diem Method

The per diem, or “daily” method, takes a different approach. This method counts the number of days you have dealt with, are expected to be dealing with, your injuries. You and our lawyers then come up with a reasonable dollar amount to represent the effects of the accident for one day. Finally, you add up the number of days you are expected to be dealing with your injuries and multiply that number by the “daily pain amount” to get the amount of non-economic damages you request. In contrast to the multiplier method, the per diem method is most often employed when the plaintiff is expected to fully recover from the effects of the accident. After all, using this method for a lifelong injury would result in an indefinite amount of damages, which a court is very unlikely to award.

How Long Do I Have to File a Motorcycle Accident Claim in Savannah, GA?

You cannot wait forever to file a motorcycle accident claim in Georgia. There are laws in place called statutes of limitations that put a time limit on how long you have to file a claim for a given grievance. In the case of motorcycle accidents and other personal injury claims, the statutory period you have to file your claim is two years under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33. After that time is up, you will not be able to file your claim, and a court cannot award you financial compensation.

Two years may seem like a long time, but in the world of lawsuits, it is no time at all. Remember to factor in time spent focusing on recovering from your injuries, as well as the time it takes for attorneys and others to gather and go through all of the relevant information needed before filing your case. Therefore, it is almost always better to contact our attorneys sooner rather than later to ensure your claim is filed in a timely fashion.

Talk to a Motorcycle Accident Attorney in Savannah, GA Today

Call (470) 287-3070 and discuss your claim with Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s motorcycle accident legal team for free today.