Articles Posted in Automobile Accidents

Technically speaking, the automobile insurance company for the driver who caused your accident and damaged your car or truck does not have the responsibility to pay for a rental vehicle while your vehicle is being repaired.  However, as a practical matter, many insurance companies will pay for the cost of a rental car for a reasonable period of time while a vehicle is being repaired.

Why do these insurance companies pay for a rental car when the law doesn’t require them to do so?  Because the law requires the insurance company to pay damages for "loss of use" while the vehicle is out of service.  The time that the vehicle is being evaluated for repairs and being repaired must be a reasonable period of time.  

It is difficult to determine the value of "loss of use" but one good way to avoid future litigation over the meaning the phrase and the damages that must be paid is to supply a replacement vehicle for the use of the person whose vehicle was damaged in the wreck.  Thus, insurance companies who believe that their insured driver was at fault will frequently give the claimant the right to rent a replacement vehicle.

If you are involved in a Tennessee hit and run accident you may still be able to recover damages for the injuries you sustained in the accident.  How?  Your uninsured motorist insurance coverage on your vehicle protects you from hit and run drivers.

To prove an uninsured motorist claim in a hit and run case, you have to prove that t(a) here was actual physical contact between your vehicle and the hit and run driver; (b) the driver that hit you was negligent; (c) you reported the accident to a law enforcement agency within a reasonable period of time; (d) you were not negligent in failing to learn the identity of the hit and run driver or the owner of that driver’s vehicle; and (e) the nature and extent of your injuries caused in the accident.

Different rules apply if the there was no physical contact between your vehicle and the other vehicle that you say caused the accident.  

Tennessee law requires that a personal injury lawsuit be filed within one year of the date causing an accident.  Failure to file a lawsuit on time against the person or company responsible for your injuries will result in a loss of your rights.

There are certain exceptions to the one year deadline for filing personal injury lawsuits, but you should not assume that any exception applies to you unless a competent lawyer familiar with all of the facts advises you that you have more than one year to file a lawsuit.  

Do not wait until the last few days before the one-year deadline to file a lawsuit expires to hire a lawyer. Delay in seeking a lawyer means that valuable evidence may be lost and it is likely that mistakes have been made that effect the value of the case.   

A "summary judgment" is a decision by a judge that an automobile accident, truck accident, or other type of case should not go to a full trial before a jury.  A judge can make a decision not to let a jury decide a case only if the judge determines that there is no dispute about the important facts of the case and that a reasonable jury could arrive at only one result in the case.  If that is true, the judge will grant summary judgment (that is, a judgment before trial) to the person who he or she thinks should win the case before permitting a full trial on the case before a jury.

Sometimes a judge will grant a "partial summary judgment."  Thus, the judge will determine that a car accident or truck accident was the sole fault of the defendant (the person or company sued in the case) but a jury must determine what damages were caused in the wreck and the monetary value  of the damages.

Summary judgments are very rare in auto accident and truck accident cases.  They are much more common in medical malpractice cases and in cases where people have been injured by defective or unreasonably dangerous products.

It is almost always necessary for an experienced Tennessee injury attorney to obtain an injured person’s medical records before a personal injury claim for a car or truck accident can be fully evaluated,  Also, the at-fault driver’s insurance company will also want to see the records before authorizing a settlement of the claim.

Many personal injury clients get frustrated at the delay in obtaining medical records.  It can often take a month or more to obtain medical records from doctors, hospitals, and physical therapists, and even more time from certain health care providers.  There is no good excuse for these delays – virtually every provider charges for this service and the delays are extremely frustrating, both for the lawyer and the lawyer’s client.

The delays are caused because the health care providers don’t have enough staff on hand to meet the demand for records, and put record requests by attorneys for clients at the bottom of the stack.  In other words, these health care providers give a higher preference for record-copying to other health care providers and insurance companies than they do lawyers.