If you’ve been the victim of a car accident in Washington DC, your life could be changed forever. With the help of a reputable DC car accident lawyer, you can fight for the settlement you deserve–one that will allow you to redeem your lost wages and medical expenses while sustaining your ability to provide financially for your family. Our proven auto accident attorneys can examine all details of your case and utilize every available resource in order to help you win your case and maximize the value of your compensatory settlement.
An experienced attorney is equipped to handle auto-related injury claims and is ready and willing to help you during what is surely a time of great stress and turmoil.
The legal professionals at our firm will examine every aspect of the incident as they build the strongest possible claim. That care and dedication is your best chance for receiving damages, either through a settlement or an award of damages by a judge or jury. Those damages can include compensation for any harms and losses you have suffered, lost wages, and sky-rocketing bills. Contact our DC law offices today for a free initial case consultation with one of our auto accident attorneys to learn more about your specific options.
Different kinds of car accidents are more or less likely to inflict serious injuries on the victims. Price Benowitz LLP has experience handling many types of accidents, including:
Furthermore, car accidents can be caused by a number of different driving behavior. Particularly dangerous behavior that frequently results in accidents.
These accidents often result in property damage, but more importantly, they can cause personal injury from the force of collisions (e.g., whiplash) or even death. Contact a DC car accident attorney today to help you get compensation for your injuries. Our firm also handles claims involving other kinds of motor vehicle accidents. Here are some car accidents that may be treated differently from typical car accident cases:
If you have been involved in a car crash, you are probably struggling to deal with a mountain of medical and car repair bills and, possibly, lost wages from being unable to work due to your injuries or inability to use your car. You are also likely wondering whether you have any legal recourse to seek compensation for these losses. Frequently, what many of us refer to as car accidents are not accidents at all, but are caused by the negligence, carelessness, or recklessness of another party. That may include someone driving under the influence, texting while driving, following too closely, speeding, or a number of other things. A dedicated DC auto accident lawyer will have extensive experiencing litigating these types of cases and more, and he will have numerous successful results. He will know what types of issues to explore when filing your claim, which can range from flawed vehicle designs and defective car parts — such as defective or dangerous engine components, seat belts, air bags, tires, brakes, and steering systems – to drivers who fail to keep their vehicles properly maintained and serviced. Other types of accidents include those involving large trucks, which logged nearly 4,000 deaths and more than 100,000 injuries nationwide.
Combined, these defects and careless drivers contribute to thousands upon thousands of deaths every year. These issues also demand that victims take legal action to ensure that the individual or parties responsible for causing the victim’s injuries, of the death of a loved one, will not continue unfettered. If you have been implicated in such an accident, it is in your best interest to contact an experienced DC auto accident lawyer.
Even for an experienced DC attorney, it’s very difficult to predict an approximate settlement value for a specific car crash lawsuit because so many factors are at play, including the severity of the accident and the resulting injuries, whether these injuries are permanent and/or significantly life-altering, the makeup of the jury, the perceived distribution of fault in the incident and much more. By speaking to a qualified auto injury attorney you’ll be able to receive a rough estimate of what your settlement value could look like, though your actual settlement could differ greatly from this estimate due to factors that occur while the lawsuit is ongoing.
If your car accident case reaches a trial, both the outcome of the lawsuit and the monetary value of the settlement you receive will be determined by a jury of your peers. The jury will look at a wide variety of factors when determining both of these, including but not limited to the following:
An attorney in DC would be responsible for investigating each of the factors that lead to a car accident in order to build a strong case to present to the jury. His or her goal will be to present these factors to the jury in a way that influences them to increase the value of your settlement, using any legal means available.
Before your case reaches a trial, and probably shortly after your accident, you will likely receive a call from the defendant’s insurance company offering you an initial settlement value. By refusing this offer and hiring a DC auto accident attorney to work on your case, the insurance company will continually increase its offer, hoping that you’ll settle before a trial. Some of the factors that the insurance company will look at when determining each settlement offer include the following:
It’s important to note that insurance companies typically do not take pain and suffering into account when determining pre-trial settlement offers, since these factors are usually quite subjective. In most cases, insurance companies use software as opposed to actual human logic to calculate these factors, which is why subjective factors are difficult to weigh. This is where it truly pays to have a skilled and compassionate lawyer in DC who will explain your pain and suffering from a car crash to a jury in a way that they can understand and sympathize with.
Victims will typically choose to settle their case if the offer they receive from the insurance company is enough to cover the damages owed to them. However, victims should under no circumstances settle their case without the input of a professional auto injury attorney. Usually, insurance companies will offer victims an amount significantly less than what the victim is entitled to receive. Once a settlement has been reached, the victim is extremely unlikely in receiving any compensation after the case has been settled.
If a settlement cannot be reached, the plaintiff will have no other choice but to take their case to court to obtain compensation. By taking a case to court, a person’s compensation award will be contingent solely on the court’s decision. As a result, it is possible for the court to award a victim what they deserve, while still risking not obtaining any type of compensation whatsoever.
Every case is unique in terms of its facts, circumstances, and in the application of the facts of any particular case to the law. Every case has its own uniqueness and merits that have to be pursued in terms of what the cause of the accident was, what at fault party did or didn’t do, if they violated any traffic law, and the type of injury and the treatment.
Every case is unique and every case is individual, and that’s why it’s that much more important to get an attorney involved. An experienced attorney will know how to handle all of these issues from the inception of the case. They will know how to prove that the other party caused the accident as a result of road rage or general negligence. It’s important to get the attorney involved the earlier the better, because the attorney can advise the injured party as to the best way to move forward in navigating all of the issues in a case.
In addition, the attorney can investigate the accident. A number of times, if medical treatment is refused on the scene, there won’t be a lot of investigation by the police officer, just an exchange of information and the police officer will write a report of the accident scene. If that’s the case, it’s important for the attorney to get an investigator involved early to be able to investigate the accident, talk to witnesses, and do independent investigation to help substantiate what will have to be proven in the case. As the injured party and the plaintiff in a court case, it is our burden to prove everything, which means the more evidence we have, and the earlier we have it, the better it is for the case.
According to the United States Census Bureau, more than 10 million auto accidents occurred each year across the country from 1990 to 2009. During that same time frame, more than 35,000 deaths were logged within one year of an auto collision. And according to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, motor vehicle crashes increased in 2012, following a six year national decline. If you were injured in a car accident in the District of Columbia, or if you have lost a loved one in an automobile or other vehicle crash in the region, a DC attorney can help you pursue civil justice through a personal injury or wrongful death claim.
Our office handles a wide variety of auto accident claims, including:
If you have been involved in a car collision, the one of the worst things you can do is not talk to a dedicated legal professional. The DC auto accident attorneys at our firm are highly skilled at holding negligent drivers and insurance companies responsible while remaining extremely sensitive to the needs of their clients and providing strong emotional support. Their passion for helping victims while pursuing justice means that you will benefit from the best of both worlds in the personal injury legal services realm.
Someone who has been involved in an accident with someone who is uninsured or underinsured will want to speak with an attorney and discuss how to move forward.
Traffic collisions are one of the most common causes of both non-fatal and fatal personal injuries across the entire United States, including in and around the District of Columbia. According to data compiled by DC and local NPR affiliate WAMU, there were 313 fatalities from car crashes in the District and surrounding counties in 2022 and more than 22,000 total wrecks across the areas surveyed.
Traffic data from the DC Metropolitan Police Department goes even further, showing that 35 of those fatalities happened within the legal boundaries of the District of Columbia. Even worse, those numbers seem to be increasing in recent months, with 52 fatalities occurring on DC roads in 2023 and up-to-date 2024 numbers trending towards matching or exceeding that total. Car wrecks happen more often than many people expect and can have life-altering repercussions when they do.
The top priority for anyone involved in a DC auto accident should be seeking professional medical care as soon as possible afterward, even if they feel fine in the moment. Many common car crash injuries do not produce obvious symptoms for hours or even days after they first occur. Waiting too long to get a professional diagnosis and treatment for those injuries can lead to them causing much more long-term damage.
If a car accident injury is not serious enough to need immediate emergency care, though, there are several important things to do prior to leaving the accident scene, including:
Doing these things will not only help keep an accident victim on the right side of DC laws regarding hit and run offenses, but also help create and preserve important evidence that their attorney can later incorporate into a lawsuit or settlement demand.
In the best-case scenario, traffic accidents in DC result only in minor cosmetic injuries like contusions and small cuts that do not require any medical treatment beyond basic first aid. More often, though, auto collisions end up causing serious and potentially debilitating injuries that require immediate professional medical care, such as:
Guidance from skilled legal counsel can be key to demanding fair compensation for all medical expenses—including expected costs of future rehabilitative and maintenance care—stemming from a specific accident.
Medical bills are far from the only economic loss that can be factored into a car accident lawsuit. In many situations, it is possible to incorporate various other forms of objective financial harm into a claim as well, including things like:
It is also possible to recover for non-economic forms of harm as well, including:
A qualified lawyer can go into more specific detail during a free case evaluation about what damages could be factored into a particular DC auto accident claim.
No matter how bad the injuries caused by a traffic accident or how long they are expected to last, car crash victims in Washington, DC, generally have three years at most to file suit. More specifically, they usually have three years from the date their injury first occurred to formally start litigation over that injury. However, extensions are sometimes allowed when it takes someone a while to discover that their injuries stemmed from another person’s negligence. This rule—which is most commonly referred to as the statute of limitations—is codified under D.C. Code §12-301.
Another possible legal roadblock to getting civil compensation after a car crash in DC is the no-fault insurance system that applies to wrecks within the District’s borders. Under DC law, all licensed drivers with motor vehicles registered in their name must maintain at least the following minimum amounts of auto insurance coverage:
Additionally, car crash victims have 60 days after an accident to decide whether they want to claim benefits through the personal injury protection (PIP) coverage in their own auto insurance policy. These benefits are available on a no-fault basis. If a crash victim accepts them, they can only file a civil lawsuit against someone else involved in the crash if their PIP benefits do not cover all their medical bills and lost work income from the wreck or if they suffered a serious and long-lasting injury.
Given how complicated the process of filing suit over a car accident can be, it should hardly come as a surprise to hear that help from a skilled car accident lawyer can be crucial to getting the best possible result from this kind of lawsuit or settlement demand. What is also important to know, though, is that hiring legal counsel does not take money out of the pockets of accident victims who need it. Instead, it virtually always increases the money they take home at the end of their case.
This is because many auto accident lawyers work on contingency and receive a percentage of the damage awards they recover on behalf of clients as compensation—so if they do not win, they do not get paid. That said, some attorneys have fee structures built around upfront or hourly payments, so it is always worth discussing the potential costs of a case during an initial case evaluation.
Of course, getting good case results for people injured in DC automobile accidents is something the team at Price Benowitz, LLP has extensive experience with. In fact, anyone who works with a Price Benowitz attorney is working with someone who has contributed to dozens of successful case results in the past, including cases that resulted in court judgements as high as $5 million in value.
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