PROVING FAULT FOR YOUR MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT IN ORANGE COUNTY, CA

California upholds the fault rule for resolving vehicle accidents, meaning that whoever causes an accident is responsible for the resulting damages. Before obtaining any sort of recovery for your recent motorcycle accident through insurance and/or a personal injury claim, you must be ready to prove exactly how it happened and identify the party or parties responsible for causing it.

Motorcycle accidents occur for many of the same causes as other vehicle accidents. However, due to their small size, motorcycles are easier to miss in certain situations, making motorcyclists more vulnerable to suffering serious injuries in unexpected accidents. A few commonly reported causes of motorcycle accidents leading to legal disputes in Orange County include:

• Distraction, which is the top-reported cause of all motor vehicle accidents across the country each year. Even momentary inattention behind the wheel can easily cause a devastating accident. Your Orange County motorcycle accident attorney may seek cell phone records, traffic camera footage, and other evidence to help you prove the at-fault driver was distracted behind the wheel when they caused your accident.

• Any time a driver exceeds the speed limit, they put themselves at risk of causing a serious accident. Additionally, speeding increases the severity of resulting injuries greatly when an accident does occur. Speeding is a leading contributing factor to the number of fatal motorcycle crashes in California each year. Your attorney may seek the other driver’s vehicle computer data to prove their speed at the moment of impact.

• Moving violations, such as running a red light, performing an illegal turn, or failing to yield the right of way where appropriate. These actions disrupt traffic flow, and when moving violations cause accidents in busy metropolitan areas, they are likely to result in multi-vehicle collisions. Therefore, traffic camera footage and eyewitness statements are usually important for proving fault for these types of accidents.

• Driving under the influence (DUI). This is illegal, and a driver convicted of a DUI offense can face a fine, jail time, and driver’s license suspension. Penalties automatically increase when the DUI driver injures someone in an accident or if they have a record of prior DUI offenses within the past few years. Whenever illegal activity causes an accident, the at-fault party faces criminal prosecution from the state with heightened penalties along with civil liability for the victim’s damages.

Whatever the cause of your recent motorcycle accident may be, your Orange County motorcycle accident attorney will assist you in gathering the evidence needed to prove liability. It’s possible for more than one party to bear fault for your damages, and the plaintiff in a civil suit could absorb partial liability as well.

The state upholds the pure comparative negligence rule, and this rule comes into play in any civil case in which multiple parties bear fault for the damages in question. If a plaintiff absorbs any measure of fault for the claimed damages, they will lose a percentage of their case award to reflect this. So, if you file a motorcycle accident claim against another driver but an investigation reveals that you are 25% at fault, it would result in losing 25% of the damages you secure from the defendant.

When you hire Zwick Law for representation in a motorcycle accident claim, we will immediately get to work gathering the evidence you need to not only prove who is responsible for your damages but also the full extent of those damages. If there are concerns about being partly responsible for your motorcycle accident, we will carefully review the evidence in play and look for every option for reducing any shared liability you hold for the incident. Our goal is to help you maximize your recovery however possible.

NAVIGATING THE AUTO INSURANCE CLAIM PROCESS FOR A MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT

Every driver in the state must have auto insurance that includes bodily injury liability coverage and property damage liability coverage. This insurance comes into play when the covered driver causes an accident. At a minimum, their policy must provide at least $15,000 in liability coverage for bodily injury for each person injured in a single accident, and this must increase to $30,000 in liability coverage for bodily injury for all persons injured in a single accident. In addition, their policy must also provide at least $5,000 in liability coverage for property damage.

These coverage amounts may compensate for the losses in a minor accident, but if the victim suffered any severe injuries, they are unlikely to secure full compensation through insurance alone. Therefore, whether you anticipate resolving your motorcycle accident claim through just an insurance claim or you anticipate further legal recourse against the other driver, you have a better chance of recovering as fully as state law allows with an experienced Orange County motorcycle accident attorney assisting you.

Insurance carriers and their representatives can cause a lot of stress, and unfortunately, some of them engage in bad faith tactics to essentially bully claimants into accepting lowball settlement offers or justify the denial of legitimate claims. However, once an insurance company recognizes that a claimant has legal representation, they will be unlikely to attempt any unethical handling of the claim. Zwick Law is ready to confront the largest insurance companies on behalf of our clients in Orange County.

COMPENSATION AVAILABLE IN AN ORANGE COUNTY PERSONAL INJURY CLAIM

Once you recover as much compensation as you can through your auto insurance claim, the next step of your recovery will be to file a personal injury suit to recover your remaining losses from the driver who is responsible. Unfortunately, while the average person who experiences a personal injury in Orange County is typically able to identify immediately recognizable losses, they often struggle when it comes to assessing the full long-term impact of their accident.

Under the state’s personal injury statutes, the defendant who caused your motorcycle accident is responsible for your:

• Medical expenses. Motorcycle accidents often result in broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, and other catastrophic physical harm. Therefore, the defendant responsible for your injuries must compensate you for all the medical treatment you require to heal as fully as possible. This includes both immediate and long-term medical expenses resulting from your accident.

• Lost income. When you are unable to work because of a personal injury that another party caused in Orange County, the at-fault party is liable for all the income you lose during your recovery period. Additionally, if you were permanently disabled by your injuries and cannot work again, the defendant can be held responsible for the future income you are no longer able to earn.

• Damage to property. A guilty defendant must pay for repairing or replacing your motorcycle and any other property lost in the accident. Their insurance may cover some of these damages, and any remainder qualifies as economic damages in your personal injury claim.

Once your Orange County motorcycle accident attorney has helped you calculate your total economic losses, you could discover that your claim is worth much more than you anticipated. However, state law also permits you to seek pain and suffering compensation.

The term “pain and suffering” may sound like it would be too subjective to translate to a monetary value, but nothing limits the amount of pain and suffering compensation you can claim for a motorcycle accident in California. Your Orange County motorcycle accident attorney can determine a fair figure based on the severity of your injuries and the scope of long-term complications you are likely to experience because of your accident.

If your injuries are expected to heal completely in the near future, your attorney may seek a pain and suffering arrangement that awards compensation for every day you spend in recovery. Alternatively, if your accident resulted in a permanent disability of any kind, your attorney is likely to seek a big lump sum of compensation on your behalf. Depending on the severity of your injuries, your pain and suffering compensation could form the bulk of your case award.

Zwick Law has years of experience representing victims of motorcycle accidents and other negligent acts or misconduct throughout Orange County. Our team will help you approach your case with peace of mind because we know the legal challenges you face as you seek compensation for your losses. We’ll guide you through the insurance claim filing process, and if you must file a personal injury case against the other driver, we will aim for maximum recovery under state law. We will work to settle the case quickly if possible, but we are fully prepared to go to court if necessary.

CONTACT OUR EXPERIENCED ORANGE COUNTY MOTORCYCLE ACCIDENT ATTORNEYS

The attorneys at Zwick Law have years of experience handling all types of civil claims for our clients in Orange County, and we know how devastating a motorcycle accident can be for the victim and their family. If you think you have grounds for legal recourse against another driver in response to your recent crash, contact Zwick Law today to set up your consultation with an Orange County motorcycle accident attorney.