Fatal Head on Accidents

Grossman Law Offices Can Help if You’ve Lost a Family Member in a Fatal Head-on Collision

If your loved one has perished in a head on collision with another car, then you may have the right to attain compensation through a wrongful death lawsuit, depending upon the specific circumstances of the accident. However, successfully securing maximum compensation is extremely challenging for non-lawyers due to the complexity of the laws and legal processes involved.

Most often, the family of the deceased will be seeking compensation through an insurance claim, but that doesn’t mean they will be compensated fairly. Insurance companies are far more interested in pumping up profits than providing restitution to the families of the wrongfully killed. While you are hopefully new to this process, the insurance adjusters do this for a living and they’re extremely skilled at finding reasons to deny claims or convincing grieving families to accept less than they are entitled. In order to get the compensation your loved one’s death warrants, you need a crafty and experienced auto accident attorney. At Grossman Law Offices, Michael Grossman and his associates have been dealing with personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits stemming from car wrecks for 20 years in both Texas and Arkansas, so we know how to protect your family’s rights, secure the maximum compensation possible, and bring the party or parties who negligently caused your loved one’s death to justice.

How Do I know if I Have the Right to a Wrongful Death Lawsuit?

Just because your loved one died in a head-on collision doesn’t mean that you will be able to file a successful wrongful death lawsuit. In order for a death to be considered a wrongful death which can be remedied through legal action, it must contain three elements:

• Duty – when different parties interact, they each have a legal duty to take reasonable action to protect each other’s safety. Exactly what is considered reasonable depends upon the particular situation. When it comes to driving, all people are expected to operate their vehicle safely by adhering to the rules of the road. However, there are other duties involved with driving. The city has the duty of maintaining traffic signals adequately and providing a police officer to direct traffic in busy intersections when the traffic signals breakdown. The automaker and the manufacturer of the car’s parts have the duty of providing machinery that functions properly.
• Breach – when a party fails to maintain the required duty in a given interaction. This could be another driver falling asleep on a two-lane highway and drifting into the other lane, or the city could breach its duty when a stoplight malfunctions, or the manufacturer can breach its duty when a mechanical glitch occurs.
• Causation – the particular accident occurred because of the breach of duty. The head-on accident would not have happened unless the driver drifted across the road, or the stoplight ceased working, or the steering wheel broke down.

When it comes to fatal head-on collisions, it should be noted that more than one party may often be liable, including the driver who was killed in the wreck. In order to be able to pursue compensation, your loved one must not be more than 50 percent responsible for the accident. Thus, if your family member was the party who fell asleep at the wheel and caused a head-on wreck, then you likely don’t have the grounds for a wrongful death claim. If your loved one was partially responsible for the accident but not predominantly liable, then you can still seek compensation, only your loved one’s insurer will provide a portion of the benefits along with the other driver’s insurance provider.

With many different possibilities regarding how a given accident may have happened, you need the help of an auto accident attorney who has spent many years investigating head-on car wrecks, so that you can find out how the accident happened, who caused it, and who should be brought to justice. Without a thorough investigation on your loved one’s behalf, the insurance company or defense lawyer may be able to claim your family member caused the accident and you don’t deserve to be compensated.

What Forms of Compensation may your Family Seek?

After two decades helping grieving families, we know how earth-shattering it can be for a family to lose a loved one in any type of accident, and we’re aware that there is no sum of money large enough to adequately repay the loss you have suffered. However, we also understand the other side of this issue, which is that your family has sustained considerable financial setbacks as a result of your loved one’s death. While we cannot immediately help you recover emotionally, we can help your family bounce back economically. Over the years, we have found that families find emotional healing more swiftly once their financial worries are assuaged.

Families can pursue two different kinds of compensation in one comprehensive lawsuit: wrongful death damages and survival damages. In Arkansas, families must appoint an executor of the estate to serve as its representative and file the claims for these damages, but in Texas, this is not required. The spouse, child, and parent of the victim can all seek wrongful death damages which allow them to obtain compensation both for their financial losses and their emotional suffering. Examples of wrongful death damages are:

• Loss of economic support provided by the deceased.
• Funeral bills.
• Mental and emotional suffering.
• Loss of the unique companionship and familial love only the victim could supply.

Unlike wrongful death damages, survival damages may only be sought by one member of the victim’s family – the closest living relative. Survival damages give this person the chance to seek compensation for the suffering the victim experienced in the head-on collision. Examples of survival damages may include:

• Medical bills charged to the victim before he or she died, including ambulance transportation.
• Physical pain and suffering experienced by the victim in the accident.
• Emotional and mental trauma caused both by the victim’s injury and his or her death.

Proving some of these damages is fairly easy – funeral and medical expenses can be proven easily with the physical bills and receipts. However, only someone with significant experience proving up damages in wrongful death cases will have the know-how to be able to fix a price tag on things like mental anguish and pain and suffering. You need the help of an experience fatal auto accident attorney like those at Grossman Law Offices.

Reasons why You Need to Hire an Attorney after a Fatal Accident

Even if you think the death of your loved one in a head-on accident will be compensated by an insurance company, whether his or the other driver’s, you could still benefit from the assistance of a skilled fatal auto accident lawyer. Even insurance claims can be far more complex than they appear on the surface. With such huge amounts of money on the line with a wrongful death claim, the insurance company will often take measures to protect its assets. They will bring in their team of lawyers and attempt to prove that your loved one caused his or her own death with his or her own negligence. If you experienced any of the following conditions after your loved one’s fatal head-on accident, then you most definitely need the assistance of a skilled and seasoned auto accident lawyer:

• One of the drivers who was involved in the accident acts evasive or refuses to cooperate with some part of your investigation into what happened to your loved one.
• You and your other family members are being berated by insurance adjusters who won’t stop questioning about the accident and your loved one.
• Before you hire an attorney, the insurance company offers you a settlement offer in exchange for waiving your right to file a lawsuit to recover damages. They will usually only do this if they know you could get much, much more through a lawsuit. Don’t sign anything before first showing it to an attorney of your own choosing.
• An insurance adjuster wants to put your statements, “on the record.”
• The benefits package offered to you by the insurance company seems less than what you think you should be due.
• One of the drivers in the accident doesn’t have any insurance.
• One of the driver’s in the accident is insured by a company of which you are not familiar.
• The way the accident investigation is being conducted by the insurance company just rubs you the wrong way for some reason.

If you attempt to handle your own claim, you are at great risk of being manipulated by shrewd insurance adjusters. They know that you’re grieving, and they expect that they can take advantage of your state by getting you to say something incriminating about your loved one or to accept less than you deserve. Don’t fall for their underhanded tactics when you could protect yourself by calling Grossman Law Offices.

How We Can Help

All too often, grieving loved ones try to deal with their own insurance claim or wrongful death lawsuit after a fatal head-on accident, and they either end up with far less than they were entitled or worse – nothing at all. If you threaten a lawsuit on your own, the insurance company will welcome the fight. It has a team of defense lawyers at its disposal, and those lawyers are confident they can use confusing court procedure to defeat the inexperienced. You need someone who can help you handle all of the legal minutiae like submitting demand packets and responding to a list of admissions. When people go it alone, they usually end up that way, with no compensation for the beloved family member they have lost. In most head-on accidents, a civil lawsuit is the only way to hold the responsible party accountable, so you owe it to your loved one to do whatever you can to succeed with this action.

At Grossman Law Offices, we haven’t just been handling personal injury and wrongful death cases involving auto accidents for 20 years, but we’ve been winning them. We’ve helped deliver millions and millions of dollars in damages to hundreds of families in both Texas and Arkansas. That lengthy history of success both in the courtroom enables our clients to get their hands on equitable settlements in many cases without having to go to trial. Insurance companies and defense lawyers in this area know that they’re better off negotiating a deal than risking wasting time and money in court before paying up anyway. Whether your loved one’s death was caused by a broken stoplight, another driver, or a malfunctioning car, you’re going to need the help of a skilled auto accident attorney to get the compensation you deserve. Moreover, we will make sure you understand the complex legal issues involved with your case and are made aware of any developments as they happen. Thus, if you’ve lost a loved one a fatal head-on accident, you need to call us now for a free consultation at 1-855-589-5645 (toll free). After we’ve heard your story, we can explain your legal options and clarify any concepts you’re having trouble grasping.