In Texas, the statute of limitations for claims for personal injury resulting from a car accident is two years from the date of the accident. You have two years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit. That said, it is important not to delay but to contact an attorney as soon as possible after your accident so that your attorney can gather the necessary and critical evidence promptly before the evidence becomes unavailable or more difficult.

It is not required that you hire a car accident lawyer to make claims arising from the accident. However, it is strongly recommended. Insurance companies dealing with unrepresented car accident victims tend to make them unreasonably low offers, and once these offers are accepted, the victim relinquishes his or her rights. A car accident attorney can advocate for you to make sure you have a chance at just compensation. A car accident attorney can also provide you with guidance throughout the process. Note that car accident victims who hire an attorney receive up to 300 percent more money than those who decide to do it themselves.

The car accident attorneys at The de la Garza Law Group work on a contingency fee basis. This means that you pay nothing until and only if your case is won. If a recovery is made, the attorney is paid a percentage of the settlement. If no recovery is made, you pay nothing and ow nothing to the attorney.

The first thing to do after a car accident is make sure you are in as safe a situation as possible. After any crash, vehicles can come to rest in positions that present further danger to their occupants. Get a sense for your circumstances and do what you can to protect yourself from further danger. Next, call the police so that they can come to the scene and investigate the crash. If possible, take photographs and video of the scene, vehicles, and other driver(s). Seek medical attention for any injuries you may have sustained. Even if you feel they are minor you should still be seen by a doctor to be sure. It is common for the full extent of an injury in a car or truck accident to not be known for days afterward.

Fault in a car accident is determined by a thorough investigation of the evidence from the accident. The driver at fault will have broken a traffic law or another safety standard and their actions will have contributed to the accident. Drivers owe other people on the road a duty of care, meaning they should act with a reasonable amount of care. Fault will be assigned to a driver who has breached that duty of care.

Every car accident is different. The money you can legally recover for injuries you suffered as a result of a car accident depends on several factors. Actual damages, also called “compensatory damages,” are awarded to repair a wrong or compensate for an injury. Damages are classified as either economic damages or non-economic damages. The most reliable factor for estimating a car accident victim’s probable recovery will be through economic damages, which are damages that can be easily quantified, such as medical expenses and loss of earning capacity in the past and future. Non-economic damages are damages awarded to compensate for physical pain and suffering, physical impairment, mental anguish and disfigurement. These are also important damages to consider, but because they are subjective in nature, they are less predictive of the probable recovery. In cases of severe injury, these factors can play a larger role in estimating the recovery.

Another factor to consider in estimating a car accident victim’s probable recovery is the percentage of responsibility that the parties to a car accident bear for causing the accident. If multiple parties contributed to the crash, then at trial, the court will ask the jury to assign a percentage of responsibility to each party. Your recovery will be reduced by your own percentage of responsibility, if any, for the harm. Note that under Texas law, if the jury determines that you were greater than 51 percent responsible, then you cannot recover.

In Texas, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims, including those arising from a car accident, is two years from the date of the injury. This means that you must file a lawsuit and serve the defendant with the lawsuit no later than two years after the date of the injury. In certain cases, serving the defendant with the lawsuit can take significant time and effort. Failure to meet this deadline will result in your claims being forever barred. You can, and in many cases, should, make a pre-suit claim to the at-fault party’s insurance carrier well in advance of the expiration of the two-year period. This is the standard process in most cases, and many cases settle without the need for filing of a lawsuit. But if your case does not settle within two years from the injury and you fail to file a lawsuit, your claims are forever barred. Do not delay and act quickly to preserve your rights. An experienced car accident lawyer can help guide you through the process.

Most car accident lawyers, including those at The de la Garza Law Group, work on a contingency fee basis, meaning they charge no upfront fees and you only pay when and if you are awarded money in your case. A skilled car accident attorney typically will be able to secure a more just recovery for you than you would get trying to negotiate the claim yourself. It is a good idea to hire an experienced car accident lawyer, and it is risk-free since you will pay nothing if they do not win your case for you.