Our Approach To Pedestrian Injury Cases in Virginia
If you or a loved one has been injured in a pedestrian accident in Virginia, the following is what you should know about our firm’s approach to pedestrian accident cases. To learn more or discuss your case, call and schedule a consultation with a Virginia pedestrian accident lawyer today.
First Things to Identify in a Pedestrian Injury Case
After making sure that the injured person received the medical care that they need, as an attorney, the biggest things we’re looking for are liability and damages. We want to be able to do as much as we can to capture all of the damages, so keeping an accurate list of any out-of-pocket expenses and medical bills is important. The liability is huge especially in Maryland, Virginia, and DC as there is contributory negligence in all three of those jurisdictions.
For example, if you’re a pedestrian jaywalking and you’re hit by a car, then the case is going to be tough mostly because it’s potentially contributory negligence. If a judge or a jury finds that you’re even 1% at fault, then that will bar recovery completely. So jaywalking or other violations of law by the injured party might knock the case out on liability. If there’s any video footage of the accident that may be extremely useful not only from a liability standpoint, but also because it’s compelling to show exactly what happened.
Also, lighting sequences sometimes are important as well. Knowing how long a light stays green, how long a walk sign stays up, and whether there are changes are depending on different times of day or on traffic patterns. There are all sorts of things that come into play that can be useful.
Questions An Attorney Will Ask At An Initial Intake
The first thing an attorney will want to know is what the injured person can remember. Unfortunately, in many pedestrian injury cases the injured party doesn’t have a good memory of what took place either because they struck their head or they never saw what was coming. With that said, an attorney will want to know if they can remember anything or who else may have seen the accident occur, such as if the injured person was on the phone with someone who heard the accident occur. This in turn will help an attorney put together a better picture of what took place and how the accident occurred. Generally, the more information the better.
Often, going out to a scene of an accident, you’ll realize that there might be a security camera across the street, for instance, that might have caught the collision on video. If it involves a hit-and-run, any description of the vehicle is important so that we can get the police notified to help try and track it down that way. If it’s a plate number, we may be able to run a tag trace and find out to whom the vehicle is registered. All these types of information are really helpful especially if you have an eyewitness, but memories fade so the sooner you get to a witness to interview them or obtain a statement the better.