Car accidents sometimes send more than your car spinning off course, but your entire life. When an accident causes serious injuries, it can impact all aspects of daily living, including your ability to return to the workplace to accomplish routine daily tasks. In the worst cases, you could be facing an uncertain future and coping with catastrophic injuries or the death of a loved one.
If a serious car accident has caused adverse impacts on your life, and someone else’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions were responsible for the accident, you don’t have to absorb the economic consequences as well as the physical ones. Instead, call the personal injury lawyers in O’Fallon at Meyerkord & Kurth for assertive legal action with your best interests as our highest priority. Contact us for a free consultation today.
Why Choose Us as Your Car Accident Attorneys in O’Fallon?
Missouri’s fault-based injury laws require careful navigation and experienced handling for the best possible outcome. When it really matters, a successful car accident claim is an important step toward recovery. With representation through the law firm of Meyerkord & Kurth, you’ll have significant advantages, including the following:
- Over 100 years of combined experience in Missouri’s injury law, insurance system, and civil court
- A results-oriented approach with a personalized strategy for the unique circumstances of your case, rather than a formulaic claim that might not align with your goals
- Innovative legal techniques and access to the best accident reconstruction specialists, medical experts, and other important resources
- A history of exceptional results with over $450,000,000 in recovered compensation for our clients
- A listing as Super Lawyers and a “preeminent law firm” rating by the prestigious Martindale-Hubbell publication to put a respected voice behind your claim
We don’t charge upfront fees to car accident victims. Instead, we welcome new clients for a free case evaluation. Then, we provide our services at no cost to you until after we recover your compensation through a settlement or in court.
Common Causes of Car Accidents In O’Fallon
In 2022, there were 1,057 fatal injuries in Missouri car accidents. You may be surprised to learn that only 15.6% of the crashes occurred because of inclement weather. Driver error is the most common cause of car accidents. Missouri car accidents often result from the following:
- Speeding
- Distracted driving
- Failure to yield the right of way
- Tailgating
- Unsafe lane changes
- Improper merging
- Unsafe passing
- Traffic infractions
- Intentionally running through red lights or stop signs
- Drunk driving
- Fatigued driving
Less commonly, an investigation into a Missouri car accident reveals other causes or contributors to the accident, such as a negligent road maintenance agency or the manufacturer of a defective car part. An attorney from Meyerkord & Kurth will investigate all aspects of the accident and pursue every available avenue for compensation.
What Types of Injuries Happen In Car Accidents In O’Fallon?
The busy intersections, high-speed highways, and rural roads in and around O’Fallon are sometimes the sites of car accidents with injuries ranging from mild, painful, and inconvenient to life-altering, catastrophic, or fatal. Common injuries in Missouri car accident claims include the following:
- Broken bones
- Traumatic brain injuries
- External head and facial injuries
- Soft-tissue injuries to knees, shoulders, wrists, and ankles
- Neck injuries
- Back injuries
- Internal organ injuries
- Spinal cord injuries
- Burns
- Traumatic amputations
Injuries are more than just painful; they can also be debilitating and require ongoing medical care, physical therapy, and sometimes rehabilitation or occupational therapy. The economic and non-economic consequences of a car accident in O’Fallon include the damages in a car accident claim. Under Missouri’s fault-based injury laws, the party responsible for an accident is liable for the damages.
Proving Liability In a Missouri Car Accident Case
Under Missouri’s comparative negligence insurance laws, the injury victim has the burden of proving the at-fault party’s liability. This requires meeting the burden of proof by showing the following through a preponderance of the evidence:
- The at-fault party owed a duty of reasonable care to the injury victim and others on the road
- They violated this duty by acting with negligence or recklessness
- Their violation of the duty of care caused the accident and injury
- The injury victim suffered damages from the injury
Missouri is a pure comparative negligence state. Under this system, an insurance company’s insurance adjuster investigates the accident and assigns each involved driver a percentage of fault. In some cases, one driver is 100% at fault; however, the insurance company has an incentive to assign injury victims a portion of the fault in an accident. The insurance company can reduce the amount of compensation it pays out to a car accident victim by the percentage of fault they have for the accident. In a claim for $100,000, an adjuster could assign the injury victim 30% of fault and reduce the payout to $70,000.
An attorney from Meyerkord & Kurth investigates the accident and documents evidence to make a compelling case for full and fair compensation for our injured clients.
What Damages Are Recoverable In a Car Accident Claim In O’Fallon?
A serious car accident causes substantial economic damages as well as physical harm. After an accident, damages quickly escalate. A successful claim recovers compensation for damages such as the following:
- Past and future medical expenses
- Past and future income loss
- Diminished earning capacity due to disability
- Out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel costs to see specialists, adaptive equipment, or home health aid
- Pain and suffering
- Other damages that apply in catastrophic injury cases, such as loss of limb, disfigurement and scarring, loss of vision, hearing loss, loss of consortium, and diminished quality of life
If a car accident causes fatal injuries, a wrongful death claim can recover compensation for a close family member.
Call the O’Fallon Car Accident Attorneys at Meyerkord & Kurth
The timing of a car accident claim is important. Insurance companies sometimes reach out quickly with settlement offers for substantially less than the full amount of the injury victim’s damages, knowing that injury victims facing an uncertain future are vulnerable. Accepting an early settlement offer requires signing away the right to file a lawsuit. Instead, call the car accident attorneys at Meyerkord & Kurth for representation and then direct all communication with the insurance companies to your car accident lawyer in O’Fallon, who will protect your legal rights and safeguard your best interests