Louisville Car Accident Attorney

A car accident can be one of the most physically and emotionally traumatizing events you may ever go through in your lifetime. In the blink of an eye, anything can happen from having a big dent in your bumper to the car being totaled. You can be shaken up or need immediate medical assistance. Every car accident is different, but they are all life changing on many levels.

If you or a loved one was injured in a car wreck, you need strong legal representation to access the maximum compensation you deserve. At Thomas Law Offices, we know the importance of working with a personal injury lawyer you can trust and rely on. We believe that our track record of securing compensation for accident victims speaks for itself, and we are ready to get started on your auto accident case.

Our Louisville car accident lawyer will evaluate the facts of your car accident case to make sure that the other driver is held accountable for their negligent or reckless actions. You can schedule a free consultation with one of our attorneys to get your questions answered about pursuing a claim.

Why Work With a Louisville Car Accident Attorney?

You are entitled to seek a remedy for losses following a serious motor vehicle accident. However, if you are trying to recover compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, and property damage, the other driver’s insurance company might do everything possible to suppress those rights.

They rely on you not knowing what you are due. Many insurance carriers have a track record of persuading and even bullying victims into accepting settlements that do not fully cover their damages.

Our car accident lawyer in Louisville won’t let that happen. Here is how an experienced personal injury law firm can help if you’ve been severely injured in an auto accident.

Dealing With the Insurance Company

The insurance company is not your friend, so do not expect them to have your best interests at heart. In our experience, the at-fault driver’s insurer will actively try to minimize your injuries and overall damages and may even try to shift the blame back onto you. When you work with a personal injury attorney, you’ll have someone on your side who will stand up to the insurance company.

An experienced car accident lawyer can also take over all communication with the insurance company. Instead of negotiating your own settlement, you’ll have someone on your side who will refuse to let the insurer push you into accepting anything less than you are owed.

Determining Fault

No two motor vehicle accidents are alike, which makes determining fault complex. An experienced car accident attorney will know what steps to take to prove liability in your personal injury case. If you try to establish that the other driver was at fault without legal backing, it may come down to your word against theirs.

A knowledgeable attorney will access information from the police report, eyewitnesses, and pictures or videos of the accident scene. In some situations, it is necessary to utilize the expertise of an accident reconstructionist.

Valuing Your Claim

You are entitled to financial compensation after a serious car crash. Despite this, many car accident victims are bullied out of receiving the fair compensation they are owed. This is because correctly valuing a claim is an enormous undertaking and involves more than just considering what you need in the present. To fully understand what you might be owed, your Louisville personal injury lawyer will take the following into account:

• Current and future medical expenses
• Loss of income
• Reduced earning capacity
• Auto repairs
• Any court costs
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional trauma
• Moving costs if your home is no longer suited to your injuries or disabilities
• Loss of companionship or consortium

Why Thomas Law Offices?

At Thomas Law Offices, our Louisville car accident lawyers have dedicated their legal careers to helping auto accident victims. We have the experience, knowledge, and ability to hold the at-fault driver and their insurance company accountable for your injury claim.

We can also be of service if you were injured in a hit-and-run accident or if the other driver was uninsured. In this situation, you will need to recover compensation from your own insurance company. We’ll help you navigate your uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage through your own insurance coverage, which will help you cover medical expenses and any other damages related to your vehicle collision.

We Prioritize Transparent Communication

This is your injury case; you deserve to know what’s happening. Our law firm’s attorneys will ensure that you feel included and up to date about every aspect of your claim. If you’re confused about a part of the process or are unsure of your next move, you’ll never feel like you have nowhere to go for help.

The Louisville car accident lawyers at Thomas Law Offices believe that open communication built on a foundation of trust and a strong attorney-client relationship is key. We are committed to ensuring that every crash victim who chooses to work with our law firm knows they can reach out with any question at any point, and we’ll be there to answer.

We Prioritize Your Future

When you are dealing with the immediate aftermath of a car accident, it can be difficult to think about anything other than your immediate needs such as getting help for injuries and getting your car fixed. You need an expert to help determine how your injuries and property damage will impact your future. Our Louisville car accident lawyers have the experience it takes to consider what type of effect your injuries will have in the long term. We’ll answer the important questions like:

• Will you be able to work with this injury?
• Will you need to change jobs?
• Is your current home inaccessible due to your injuries?
• Will you need ongoing medical care and treatment?

How Long Do I Have to File a Car Accident Lawsuit?

There are several important filing deadlines which you must adhere to before you can successfully pursue a car accident claim. We can provide guidance for meeting these deadlines and provide invaluable assistance in ensuring that they are all met:

• Kentucky State Police requires you to file an accident report within 10 days of a car wreck.
• According to Kentucky state law, personal injury claims must be filed within one year of the date of the wreck.
• Kentucky law allows for up to two years to file a property damage claim that does not involve any injuries.

These deadlines are important for victims pursuing car accident cases. Your Louisville car accident attorney will make sure that all documents are correctly filled out and submitted on time.

Be Careful When Speaking With an Insurance Company After Your Accident

The insurance company exists to prioritize its bottom line, not to pay out settlements to injury victims. When you try to file a claim, the insurer will employ several tactics to lower your settlement and prevent you from filing a personal injury lawsuit. Watch out for the following:

• Any questions such as “How are you today?” or “Are you doing well?” While these might seem like innocent questions that we answer as a social nicety, your answer can be purposely misconstrued by an insurance adjuster trying to minimize your injuries.
• Requests for additional paperwork or documentation. While you’ll have to submit things to help support your claim, repeated requests for additional documentation can signify that the insurer is trying to run out the clock on the statute of limitations.

If you have already hired a law firm to represent you in your case, your Louisville car accident attorney can help serve as an intermediary with insurance representatives. They could either take over as the insurance company’s direct contact or advise you through any discussions to help ensure that you don’t accidentally say something that can later be used against you.

Common Car Accident Injuries

Most car accident claims are filed by victims who are suffering a mixture of minor and serious injuries. While your doctor is responsible for diagnosing and treating any injuries from an automobile accident, it is our job at Thomas Law Offices to get you compensation for all the related medical bills.

Catastrophic Injuries

A catastrophic injury is considered especially severe. For car crash victims, catastrophic injuries tend to be those that have long-lasting impacts on their lives, limiting their physical or mental capabilities. At our law firm, our personal injury lawyers have helped recover compensation for victims who are suffering from the following severe injuries:

• Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs)
• Back injuries
• Neck injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Paralysis
• Severe burns
• Amputations
• Internal organ damage

Minor Injuries

Just because an injury is considered minor does not mean that it can’t significantly impact victims of car crashes. On their own, minor injuries can negatively impact your physical and emotional well-being and can further exacerbate any underlying medical conditions that you are already dealing with. Be wary of any car insurance company that tries to downplay the severity of any of the following:

• Broken bones
• Soft tissue injuries
• Scratches, cuts, and lacerations
• Minor burns
• Sprains and strains

Even seemingly minor injuries can have long-term implications. Soft tissue issues to joints, tendons, and ligaments have a tendency to increase the risk of additional injuries in the future. Just because you can seemingly recover from this initial damage quickly doesn’t mean it won’t continue impacting your life and well-being moving forward.

No Injury Is Too Small for Thomas Law Offices

At Thomas Law Offices, we routinely work with injury victims struggling to get the insurance company to take them and their injuries seriously. If you suffered injuries in a car crash that was not your fault, and you now need to seek medical treatment, we can help. Our law firm will ensure the insurer understands your situation’s severity. We use information from the police report, medical records, and other sources to paint a picture of your life post-auto accident.

What Causes Car Accidents?

Your Louisville auto accident lawyer will help make sense of your accident, starting with its cause. Determining the cause of the crash is a crucial step in obtaining maximum compensation for your injuries. Your car accident attorney will look at different factors and sources when determining the cause or whether the other driver was violating traffic laws at the time.

Working with car accident attorneys familiar with some of the most common causes of collisions is helpful. As of 2022, the following are the top reported contributing factors for auto accidents in Kentucky, according to data compiled by the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC).

• Driver Inattention – 35.85%
• Vehicle Not Under Control – 13.54%
• Failure to Yield – 11.12%
• Misjudging Clearance – 8.51%
• Following Too Closely – 5.59%
• Distracted Driving – 4.07%
• Driving Too Fast for Conditions – 3.42%
• Disregarding Traffic Control – 3.42%
• Alcohol Involvement – 3%
• Overcorrecting – 1.88%
• Drug Involvement – 1.06%

Driver Error

Many car accidents are the result of driver error. When you file a personal injury lawsuit after a car accident caused by driver error, you seek compensation from the at-fault driver’s insurer. Their insurer will likely do everything possible to limit their scope of responsibility, though. If you are unsure of how to definitively prove that driver error caused your accident, contact Thomas Law Offices to schedule a free consultation with one of our Louisville car accident attorneys.

Defective Auto Parts

A defective auto part can complicate liability, and you may be left wondering whether the other driver or the auto part manufacturer is responsible for the serious injuries you have suffered. When you choose to work with our law firm, we’ll explore all options for liability, including whether a driver’s failure to fix a defective auto part they knew about contributed to your accident.

If the auto manufacturer is also at fault, we’ll help you hold them accountable via a product liability lawsuit. Personal injury victims can file both a product liability claim and a car accident claim if both the driver and manufacturer were partially responsible for the resulting accident.

Kentucky Car Accident Statistics

Data from the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety paints a grim picture of our roads. Consider the following:

• There were 130,042 accidents on Kentucky roads in 2022, with 723 fatalities and 1,320 serious injuries.

While there were fewer total collisions in 2022 than in 2021, over 29,451 individuals were still injured in these crashes. Some of the most dangerous roadways that experienced the largest increase in traffic fatalities in Louisville, KY, include:

• I-264
• I-65
• S. 31W
• S. 31E
• KY 61

What To Do After a Car Accident in Kentucky

While it can be difficult to calmly follow a plan of action in the immediate aftermath of a car accident, knowing what you could do ahead of time could be helpful if you ever find yourself in a crash. If you are involved in a collision in or near Louisville, KY, the following steps will serve as an invaluable guide.

Call 911

Call for medical help immediately, even if no one is seriously hurt. Some injuries require a trained eye to identify, and symptoms of something as serious as a traumatic brain injury could be mistaken for the general confusion that so often accompanies car accidents.

Emergency responders will evaluate the individuals involved in the accident while still at the scene. From there, they may decide to transport victims to the hospital or advise that they proceed to the emergency room on their own.

Contact the Police

Under Kentucky Law KRS 189.635, you are required to immediately contact the authorities if even just one of the following conditions is met:

• There was a nonfatal injury
• There was a fatality
• There was more than $500 in property damage in an accident that took place on a highway

The responding law enforcement agent has 10 days to write up and file the police report with the Department of Kentucky State Police, at which point you can access it. Your car accident lawyer can also request a copy of the police report to help prove that the other driver’s actions caused the accident.

If you are incapacitated or otherwise unable to contact authorities, that responsibility will be passed to the owner of the vehicle (if you are not the owner) or any other occupants involved in the accident.

Take Pictures

Use your phone to take pictures of the accident scene. Evidence such as skid marks or road debris crucial to your car accident claim can disappear when you leave the scene. If you are unsure whether to document something, take a picture just in case. Our law firm suggests that anyone who has been injured in a crash in Louisville, KY, take photos of the following:

• Damage to your vehicle
• Damage to the other driver’s vehicle
• Road conditions
• The area surrounding the scene
• Anything that shows the weather conditions at the time of the accident
• Your injuries
• The other driver’s license plate

Exchange Information

You’ll need the other driver’s information to file your personal injury claim. Louisville car accident laws also require you to exchange certain information with all drivers involved in an accident:

• Names
• Addresses
• Contact information, such as phone numbers
• Driver’s license numbers
• Auto insurance providers

Consider asking for the contact information of any eyewitnesses, as well. The car accident lawyers at our law firm regularly rely on eyewitness accounts when liability is in dispute.

Seek Medical Care

Go to the emergency room if you are experiencing any troubling symptoms or signs of injury following a car wreck, including:

• Pain in your back
• Trouble turning your neck
• Numbness in any of your limbs
• A headache that won’t go away
• Dizziness
• Confusion

This is far from an exhaustive list of symptoms. Our law firm always advises that you listen to your gut and seek medical attention if anything feels wrong. Do not worry about medical bills or the cost of going to the ER. The car accident attorneys at Thomas Law Offices are here to help you recover the compensation you need to fully address your injuries.

If you do not need to go to the ER, schedule an appointment with your primary care doctor. Let them know that you’ve been in an accident and would like to be evaluated as soon as possible. This professional documentation of your injuries will be invaluable when determining how much compensation you require to cover the cost of medical treatment and ongoing care following the crash.

Notify Your Own Insurance Company

You’ll need to let your insurer know that you were involved in a car accident. There is no need to give a recorded statement at this time. Only give the facts of the crash and stick to what you know without exaggerating or playing down the severity of the crash or your injuries.

Contact a Car Accident Lawyer in Louisville, KY

A car accident can be an isolating experience, but you are not alone. We have helped guide countless victims of car accidents in Louisville, KY, through the process of recovering maximum financial compensation for their medical bills, missed paychecks, court costs, and more.

We are strong advocates for injury victims who have been harmed through no fault of their own. Whether you were injured in a reckless driving accident or by a truck driver who was operating on too little sleep, we’ll be by your side every step of the way.

What is Considered Negligence Under Kentucky Law?

In car accident cases, negligence determines legal liability. Negligence refers to the failure to take reasonable care, resulting in harm to another person. For example, a driver can be negligent by:

• Running a red light or speeding.
• Failing to yield the right of way or using turn signals.

When negligence leads to an accident, the negligent driver can be held financially responsible for the injuries and losses suffered by another party.

However, you will need to prove negligence by showing the defendant owed a duty of care, that this duty was breached, and that the breach directly caused the damages.

In these cases, the defendant was responsible for acting in a certain way to prevent harm. When they fail to fulfill that responsibility, it can lead to a wide range of damages, such as serious injuries, property damage, and even the loss of a loved one.

What if I Was Partially Responsible?

Liability is not always clear-cut. Indeed, in some situations, both drivers might be partially at fault for an accident. If this was the case with your collision, you may still be able to recover partial compensation.

Kentucky operates on comparative fault rules. According to Kentucky Revised Statutes 411.82, you can recover damages for your injuries, but those damages will be reduced by the same percentage as your fault.

Take, for example, a car accident in which you suffered $10,000 in damages for which you were also 20% at fault. Your recoverable damages would be reduced by 20%, making you eligible for $8,000 in compensation.

Our Louisville Car Accident Lawyer Is Ready to Fight for You

Thomas Law Offices is a proud advocate for car accident victims in and around Louisville, KY. When you choose to work with our law firm, you’ll have a constant proponent on your side who will stand up to the insurance company on your behalf.

You deserve to work with a law firm that treats you as more than just your injuries. Our Louisville car accident lawyer will take a whole-person approach to your claim, building the attorney-client relationship on a foundation of trust and respect.

To learn more about how we can help, contact us at our Louisville, KY, offices today to schedule a free case evaluation.