Fault in a Mississippi Car Accident

When you’re involved in a Mississippi car accident, the losses start adding up immediately. Your vehicle either needs to be repaired or replaced, you likely need medical care, and you have to take unexpected time off of work. But before you can begin seeking compensation for those losses, you have to prove who is at fault.

Luckily, we are here to help. At Gardner Law Group, we help our clients fight for the compensation they deserve after a car accident. Call us at 228-436-6555 to set up a consultation with our Biloxi personal injury attorneys.

Mississippi’s Comparative Negligence Law

Each state has its own set of personal injury laws, and it’s important to understand how those laws may affect your claim and your right to seek compensation. Luckily, Mississippi is a comparative negligence state. This means that even if you are partially to blame for an accident, you can still recover compensation in a personal injury lawsuit.

Note that your compensation may ultimately be decreased by your share of liability. For example, imagine you have $10,000 in damages. A court finds that you are 40% at fault for the collision. Your award would be decreased by $4,000, leaving you with $6,000.

When it comes to proving fault, there are numerous resources your attorney and insurance company may use.

Physical Evidence

Physical evidence plays a crucial role in most personal injury claims. Car accidents leave a shocking amount of evidence in their wake. Damage to both vehicles, injuries sustained by all involved parties, skid marks, damage to guardrails and public structures, and debris left behind may all play a part in showing what happened and who caused it.

Eyewitness Statements

Eyewitness statements are valuable pieces of evidence. It starts with statements from both drivers, which are generally included in the police report. By getting each side’s story, the insurance companies and attorneys involved can begin to see where the physical evidence fits in and determine who is telling the truth. Beyond the drivers involved in a crash, occupants of both vehicles, people in nearby businesses and homes, and pedestrians may also serve as a useful source of evidence.

Attorneys and insurance adjusters will consider what each eyewitness has to say, see if it matches up with what the drivers reported, and determine if that particular eyewitness is credible. For example, if a driver had their best friend in the vehicle, the best friend’s story may not carry as much weight as the story of a completely uninvolved bystander.

Police Reports

It’s important to secure copies of the police report as soon as possible after a car accident. In addition to including both sides’ stories, it will also include observations made by the police officer and report any citations made. Citations can be useful in proving liability, as they demonstrate that one party broke the law and was likely negligent.

Accident Reconstruction Technology

Some car accidents are harder to sort out than others. If liability is murky and it’s difficult to discern exactly what went wrong in a crash, your attorney may turn to an accident reconstruction specialist.

Accident reconstruction experts use software to recreate the conditions of an accident, imagine different scenarios, and determine what exactly went wrong to cause your collision. They have advanced education and experience that allow them to analyze vehicle trajectories, understand speed calculations, and apply the laws of physics to the crash itself. Not only does this provide valuable insight into what happened, but it can also strengthen the victim’s injury claim.

Injured in a Crash? Call Gardner Law Group Today

If you’ve been hurt in a car crash in Biloxi or Pascagoula, the team at Gardner Law Group is here to help you fight for compensation. You can call our Biloxi office at 228-436-6555, call our Pascagoula office at 228-762-6555, or reach out to us online.