Oakland Car Accident Lawyers
At Cutter Law P.C., our primary mission is to obtain financial relief for our clients who are suffering because of someone else’s negligence or recklessness. We have seen firsthand how important monetary settlements are to injury victims as they seek to recover from their injuries and rebuild their lives. We fight diligently for these funds.
Contact us for a free case review, and we’ll have one of our experienced Oakland personal injury lawyers review the facts of your case with you. If your case warrants compensation, we’ll discuss the next steps forward.
Is There a Time Limit for Personal Injury Cases?
Yes. According to the relevant statute of limitations, personal injury claims expire two years after the date of the injury. It is up to the injured party to initiate the claim within this time period, or the claim will likely be voided.
There are some exceptions to this time limit, but it is unusual for Oakland car accident cases to benefit from them. They are available when:
- The injured victim is a minor or mentally incapacitated.
- Discovery of the injury was delayed.
- The at-fault driver left the state.
Because of this time limit, it’s important to speak with an Oakland car accident lawyer soon after your injury. Don’t leave the compensation you deserve on the table by waiting too long to file your lawsuit. Contact Cutter Law P.C. today for a free case review with an experienced and compassionate attorney.
How Much Does an Oakland Car Accident Attorney Cost?
When you’re trying to recover from a car accident, you don’t want to worry about costly legal bills. You should expect personal injury law firms to offer their services on a contingency basis. This is how we operate at Cutter Law P.C..
This means you pay nothing up front because your lawyer’s service fees will be taken out of the settlement or verdict award you receive once the case has been won. The fee agreement signed up front will spell out any court fees that may be due in the event of an adverse ruling.
What Is My Car Accident Claim Worth?
Every case is different, and injuries vary from case to case. As such, the value of your personal injury claim will depend greatly on the impact your injuries have had and will have on your life and livelihood.
Generally speaking, these are the factors that will decide the ultimate value of your case:
- Medical bills, from treatment, to equipment and devices, to prescription medication
- Lost wages from time out of work to recover or help a loved one recover
- Lost future earning power from life-changing injuries
- Future medical expenses from continuing medical care over the years
- Physical therapy expenses to regain functionality and independence
- Home and car modifications to adapt your environment to your injuries
The above-listed factors—are the economic damages in California injury cases. There are also non-economic damages that are compensable. They include:
- Physical pain and suffering caused by the injury
- Inconvenience from having your life turned upside down
- Mental suffering caused by debilitation, including depression and anxiety
- Loss of consortium
Non-economic damages are more difficult to prove than economic damages. There’s no receipt for your pain that quantifies an exact dollar amount. Instead, the courts have rules for assigning dollar values to non-economic losses.
An experienced Oakland car accident attorney will know these methods inside and out and will work diligently to ensure that you are compensated for your losses.
What If I Am Partially to Blame for My Accident?
Not all car accidents are the sole fault of one driver. In many cases, the injured victim shares some responsibility for his or her injuries. In California, the law allows injured parties to still seek compensation for damages, even when they share in the responsibility for the underlying accident.
When a plaintiff is partially to blame, the amount of the compensation will be reduced in proportion to his or her degree of blame. Having a skilled injury attorney representing you is important because the other side will do what it can to assign more blame to you and thus reduce your payout.
How Can I Prove the Other Party is Liable?
California law provides that if another person’s negligence caused your injuries, you can recover damages from that person. All drivers in California owe a duty to others to drive safely and reasonably. If someone breaches that duty—for instance, if they drive drunk or operate their vehicle recklessly—and injures you directly because of that breach, then that person is liable for driving negligently, and they will have to pay you to compensate you for your injuries and damages.
In legal terms, your burden of proof is to show that the other person’s conduct “proximately caused” your injuries, meaning your injuries were a natural and direct consequence of their actions and without which you wouldn’t have been injured.
A plaintiff or injured person in California must show the following elements to prove negligence:
- The defendant (negligent party) owed a duty to act with reasonable care.
The defendant breached this duty.
The defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s injuries.
The defendant’s actions were the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, and the plaintiff suffered actual damages.
An example looks like the following:
- A driver uses their cell phone to text while driving, knowing that this conduct could injure another person, thereby ignoring their duty to follow traffic laws and drive safely to avoid harming others on the road.
- Texting while driving is breaching a duty to operate a vehicle safely and reasonably.
- The driver’s texting causes an accident, and another person is injured.
- The texting driver acted negligently, implicating them for liability. In addition, the injured party has medical records and other evidentiary support of their incurred damages due to the accident.
In California, a car accident lawyer can help you investigate and build your case to show that another person’s negligence caused the accident, resulting in your injuries and other damages.
What Should I Do After a Car Accident in Oakland?
If you’ve been in a motor vehicle accident in Oakland, there are a few steps you need to take immediately to protect yourself and ensure your legal rights.
- Call 911 immediately to report the accident. A police officer will come to the scene and write a police report detailing the event of the accident. Unless you need emergency medical attention, it’s essential to remain at the accident scene.
- Gather contact and insurance information from everyone involved in the accident, including names, addresses, telephone numbers, license plates, and vehicle identification numbers. Insist on seeing everyone’s driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. If the accident involved a parked car with no occupants, leave a note on the car with the names and addresses of everyone involved in the accident.
- You should also document everything you can about the accident, including photographs of the vehicles, the accident scene, and your injuries. Finally, determine whether there were any witnesses and, if so, collect their contact information, as they may later become invaluable in piecing together the cause of the accident.
- Report the accident to the DMV. In any accident involving injuries or damages exceeding $750, California law requires persons involved to report the accident to the California Department of Motor Vehicles within ten days. Failure to do so may lead to the suspension of your driver’s license.
- Seek immediate medical attention after the accident, even if you think your injuries are minor, to ensure you aren’t suffering from any latent injuries and to document your injuries. Injuries are sometimes not always apparent right after a car accident, so you may also want to conduct a follow-up examination with your doctor.
- Contact a car accident attorney as soon as possible after the accident. Your insurance company will likely try to settle your claim soon after the accident. Insurance companies have an interest in maximizing their profits; therefore, they may try to get you to accept a settlement offer that is well below what you’re entitled to recover.
Should I Be Speaking with the Other Party’s Insurance Company?
As an injury victim, you may be contacted by the other party’s insurance company. It is in your best interests to refrain from speaking with them in most cases. They are not calling to attend to your interests. Instead, they are most likely looking to lessen their financial responsibility.
One tactic insurance companies use is persuasion. They know victims desperately need compensation to pay bills and such. So they often dangle paltry sums in front of financially-strapped victims, hoping they bite.
Insurance companies may also call looking for information that could damage your case and reduce the money you are owed. For example, an insurance investigator or adjuster may ring you up to hear your side of the story only for the purpose of looking for negligence on your part.
As such, the only professional you should speak to about your case is a car accident attorney. Your lawyer’s number one concern is getting you the maximum settlement or verdict allowable under the law.
How Long Does It Take to Get a Settlement?
The time it takes to receive a settlement after a car accident depends on the facts of your case. After you report an accident to your insurance company, an insurance claim representative will usually contact you within a reasonable amount of time.
If you haven’t heard from a claims representative within two weeks of your accident, you should follow up with your insurance company. If the insurance company doesn’t respond within a reasonable time after that, or if you believe that the company is taking an extraordinary amount of time to settle your claim, you should contact the California Department of Insurance to notify them.
Verdicts and Settlements
At Cutter Law P.C., we have a long record of successfully representing clients hurt from motor vehicle accidents in California. Below is a representative snapshot of the successful cases our law firm has handled:
$596,000 Verdict
for a motorcyclist who was seriously injured when a car failed to yield the right of way
$678,000 Verdict
for a pedestrian whose knee and pelvis were injured as a result of being hit by a vehicle.
Our Oakland Car Accident Lawyers Are Waiting to Help You
At Cutter Law P.C., we know how to get our clients the compensation they deserve. From the moment we take your case until we reach a settlement or verdict, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that seasoned professionals are fighting to get you the resources you desperately need to cover your mounting expenses and rebuild your life.
We offer a free case review where an experienced Oakland car accident attorney will sit down with you and discuss your case. If your case is a viable personal injury claim, we will discuss how best to proceed. Remember, you pay nothing until you receive a settlement or verdict for judgment.
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Oakland Office
Cutter Law P.C.
1999 Harrison Street Suite 1400
Oakland, CA 94612
