West Ashley Truck Accident Lawyer

The injuries sustained in truck accidents are often significant. While any collision can result in severe damages, the chances increase sharply with commercial vehicles. Fortunately, a West Ashley truck accident lawyer can help you get compensation after one of these collisions. 

After a trucking accident, victims must recover fair compensation to cover all the damages they incur. Hiring an experienced personal injury lawyer in West Ashley can give you the best chance of receiving the money you need to cover your expenses and help put your life back together.

You can reach out to our team at the Thumbs Up Guys for help after a collision in South Carolina. Call or complete our online contact form to get started.

What Compensation Do You Get After a Truck Accident?

A personal injury law firm can help you secure maximum damages for all the financial costs of your truck accident in South Carolina. Our team can help you build an accident claim to request compensation for your:

Medical Bills

You may experience severe truck accident injuries after a head-on, side-impact, or rear-end collision. These accidents often result in spinal cord injuries (SCI), brain injuries, broken bones, and injuries to organs. 

A personal injury accident lawyer can help you secure damages for all required medical care, including your:

• Emergency treatment
• Time in the hospital for catastrophic injuries
• Medical assessments and procedures
• Physical therapy and rehabilitation
• Medications

You can build a legal claim after a truck crash caused by someone else’s negligence. 

Property Damage

The negligent driver in your truck accident may also have to provide financial compensation to cover the costs of repairing your vehicle. 

Lost Pay

Your attorney can help you seek fair compensation for your lost wages after a truck accident in South Carolina. We track the bonuses and raises you lost while recovering from your auto accident. 

Some personal injury victims end up with a disabling condition. In this situation, your lawyer may help you seek compensation for your diminished earning potential. 

Pain and Suffering

Finally, your attorney can help you seek damages for the mental anguish, emotional suffering, and other non-economic losses caused by a truck accident. We focus on securing rightful compensation for all the losses caused by another driver. 

Who Has to Provide You With Maximum Compensation?

Before you can recover compensation for damages sustained in a truck accident, you must first determine who is liable. In most truck accidents, determining fault can be quite challenging.

The main reason for this confusion is that so many parties are involved in the commercial trucking industry, and there is the potential that any of them could share in the blame. Some of the potentially liable parties include:

• The driver of the truck
• The trucking company
• The truck’s manufacturer
• A maintenance company that serviced the truck
• A shipping company that loaded the truck
• Another driver on the road whose actions caused the truck to collide with your vehicle

Sorting through the chaos can take a lot of work to do. Fortunately, an experienced truck accident lawyer knows what to look for in these types of cases and can help you identify the liable party in South Carolina.

We know how truck accidents are different from car accidents and can share our knowledge with you. 

Hiring a West Ashley Truck Accident Lawyer Can Help You Focus on Recovery

After a truck accident, you are going to have a lot of things on your mind. You will likely be dealing with financial concerns, as well as worries about your health and whether your life will ever fully return to normal.

You will have enough stress without worrying about fighting a legal battle to recover compensation. Fortunately, hiring a truck accident lawyer in West Ashley can help to alleviate this pressure.

Your truck accident attorney will take over all aspects of your case, including:

• Conducting a full investigation
• Speaking with insurance companies
• Filing lawsuits

Having an experienced attorney on the case can help you feel confident about resolving your legal issues. We’re ready to support you as you seek maximum compensation for all your financial losses. 

This confidence can leave you free to focus on recovering physically and emotionally from your injuries. Stress can slow recovery, so getting this battle off your plate should help significantly.

How a West Ashley Truck Accident Attorney Works for You

One of the first things your truck accident lawyer will do after being hired is to begin an investigation into your accident. Police investigations tend to focus on determining whether or not the accident resulted from criminal actions by any involved party.

While the information they gather can be helpful, it often paints an incomplete picture when it comes to a civil lawsuit. Your lawyer’s investigation will focus on proving liability and gathering evidence supporting the damages you have sustained.

During our investigation, we may: 

• Interview any truck accident eyewitnesses
• Visit the scene of your accident 
• Get a copy of your police accident report
• Request information from the truck’s black box or the trucker’s driving record
• Work with truck accident experts

Your lawyer will then use the information they have accumulated to calculate the total value of your claim. Once this is complete, they will file the necessary documents to make a claim with the liable party’s insurance or initiate a lawsuit with the court to bring you maximum compensation.

In cases where you are filing a lawsuit, your West Ashley truck accident attorney will go through all the steps of the pre-trial process, and if they haven’t reached a settlement by the end, they will argue your case in court, helping you stand up to the at-fault driver.

Why Pick Us to Handle Your Truck Accident Claim?

Our team has years of experience handling personal injury claims in South Carolina. We provide personalized legal advice to clients dealing with head-on, side-impact, and rear-end collisions involving commercial vehicles. 

We respect the attorney-client relationship and believe in open communication throughout the legal process. 

We’ve secured millions in compensation for clients like you. You can review our case results to learn more about the claims we’ve handled in West Ashley. 

Can Lawyers Help With Deadly Truck Accidents?

Our team can help with wrongful death claims after fatal accidents caused by a trucker’s reckless driving. We provide compassionate care for your family during this emotionally challenging time and help you seek financial damages. 

A personal representative must file wrongful death claims in South Carolina. However, the claim may award damages to an individual’s spouse, child, parents, or heirs. You can learn more with our auto accident lawyers. 

South Carolina and Comparative Negligence in Truck Accidents

When it comes to personal injury cases, South Carolina is a fault-based state. Furthermore, the state works on a system known as comparative negligence. Under this system, multiple parties can be at fault for an accident.

If the court decides that you have a level of fault for your truck accident, the amount you can recover from the primarily liable party will drop by your percentage of fault. For example, if the court finds that you held 30% of the responsibility for an accident, you will only be able to recover up to 70% of the total value of your claim.

If you are the primarily liable party, with over 50% of the fault for an accident, you will not be able to recover compensation from the truck driver or trucking company. Instead, you will likely find they will attempt to recoup their losses from you and your insurance.

Be Wary of Initial Settlement Offers From Insurance Companies

Another reason to hire a lawyer quickly after a truck accident is to protect yourself from the insurance company. Insurance companies hate when they have to pay out claims and will do everything possible to deny or minimize the value of a claim.

One tactic they commonly use is approaching an accident victim shortly after the accident (sometimes when they are still in the hospital) and offering them a settlement. They know that this is when victims are at their most vulnerable as they are still often in shock and likely haven’t hired an attorney yet.

The insurance adjuster will swoop in with a lowball settlement offer and pretend they are playing the hero, attempting to get you money quickly. Only take a settlement deal after talking to a lawyer first.

How Do Lawyers Help You Deal With Insurance Companies?

Your attorney will evaluate the full extent of your damages and assess the fairness of any offers made by the insurance company. They will use that information to ensure you get the money you deserve.

You can focus on recovering from your medical treatments as we review every settlement offer and negotiate a better deal on your behalf. 

What Are the Benefits of a Settlement Agreement?

While your lawyer goes through all these other steps, they will simultaneously negotiate with the opposition to attempt to reach a settlement agreement. Most truck accident cases settle out of court because it is often in the best interest of all parties involved to do so.

For the defendant, avoiding a courtroom trial can mean avoiding bad publicity. Additionally, they will have fewer legal expenses as they won’t rack up any more lawyer’s fees once they finalize a deal.

For the plaintiff, the main benefit is time. A settlement means you can recover compensation far quicker, which is a welcome relief when the bills continue piling up.

Do You Have to Settle After a Truck Accident?

While settling out of court has many benefits, the insurance company may sometimes refuse to treat you fairly. In this situation, we can help you file a personal injury lawsuit. We have the confidence to support you in and out of court. 

How Long Do You Have to File a Lawsuit in West Ashley?

After a truck accident, accident victims have a three-year period to file a lawsuit against the at-fault party under SC Code § 15-3-530. However, there are exceptional circumstances that may limit this statute of limitations.

It is always best to hire an experienced truck accident lawyer as soon as possible after an accident. A truck accident attorney in West Ashley will be able to review your case and make sure that you meet all deadlines.

What Is a Contingency Fee?

When a lawyer works on a contingency fee basis, it means they only receive a payment if they secure compensation for their client. While lawyers in most other fields charge their clients differently, personal injury lawyers nearly always work on a contingency fee basis.

That means that, unlike most other lawyers, anyone can afford to hire a personal injury attorney. There is no risk in hiring one of these attorneys, as clients will never pay a single cent out of pocket. Instead, lawyers collect their payment as a pre-arranged percentage of the compensation they can secure.

Finding the Right Truck Accident Lawyer in West Ashley

Finding a truck accident attorney with the necessary experience and with whom you feel comfortable is critical. Do your research online and take advantage of the free consultations offered by many personal injury attorneys to ensure you and your potential lawyer are a good fit.

At Miller, Dawson, Sigal & Ward, we provide experienced legal counsel to victims of truck accidents. Fill out our contact form or give us a call today to discuss your case with a West Ashley truck accident lawyer.