Motor Vehicle Accidents

Pierce & Thornton will handle all aspects of your motor vehicle accident claim from the initial investigation and preservation of evidence to the recovery of compensation from all available sources. We will conduct a thorough investigation of your motor vehicle accident claim. Interviews of witnesses and investigating police officers, photographs of the vehicles involved in the accident, as well as photographs and diagrams of the accident scene and roadway are necessary to preserve vital evidence for your claim. All available insurance will be explored to insure that all sources of coverage are paid to you. There are many sources of coverage available when someone causes an accident including the other driver's policy, members of the other driver's household's policies, employers' or lessor's policies and your own policy, even if you did not cause the accident. Unfortunately, insurance adjusters are not required by law to advise you of all coverage available and they seldom do so. We will find the coverage.
Having a full understanding of all medical issues related to your injuries is essential to maximizing your recovery. Pierce & Thornton will obtain your medical records and bills and organize and summarize them for the proper presentation of your claim to the insurance adjuster or at trial if necessary. More importantly, Pierce & Thornton will discuss the nature and extent of your injuries, all past and possible future treatment and any resulting disabilities with your treating physicians so we can communicate effectively with the insurance company or jury about your claim. By obtaining cooperation and understanding from your physicians, we can maximize your chances of obtaining a full and fair recovery for your injuries. We will also fully investigate all economic loss in addition to your medical bills including past lost wages, future lost wages and any reduction in your earning capacity. We will vigorously pursue each and every element of damages available to you.

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Virginia & D.C. Car Accidents: In Which Court Should You File?

How do the court systems work in Virginia and D.C.? That’s the question we asked Doug Stevens, an attorney who has practiced law for 30 years and whose firm focuses on personal injury and car accident matters in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, to explain. Here’s what he told us:

• District of Columbia. In the District of Columbia, I can sue you for $5,000 in Small Claims Court. The laws of evidence are relaxed, which means I’m definitely going to get your medical bills into evidence before the judge and I’m almost certainly going to get your medical reports in when dealing with a Pro Se action. The defense lawyers will usually keep the reports out, but there’s a chance the rules of evidence are relaxed in the small claims division. If you sue for more than $5,000, you’re in Superior Court, where the filing fees are more and the other side can beg for a jury. In D.C, the defense can demand a jury, regardless of the amount sued for – which is a big pain in the neck.
• Virginia. In Virginia, you can sue for $15,000 in District Court, but we have what’s called a trial de novo provision, which means no matter what happened in District Court, you get to start all over again in Circuit Court. In a lot of ways, this means that the District Court system in Virginia is really a mirage. For example, last year we got a $15,000 verdict for a little girl, the other side appealed it and that verdict just didn’t exist. It became extremely difficult thereafter to convince the parents that they should settle for $10,000, which in fact was more like the fair market value of the case. I had to explain to them that the $15,000 verdict from a judge was really a mirage under Virginia’s trial de novo rules.
  Virginia also has what’s called the plaintiff’s parachute – which is a non-suit statute. That means the plaintiff can simply announce to the court that he is taking a voluntary non-suit anytime before a verdict is returned. At that point, everything stops. The plaintiff’s lawyer can go home and the plaintiff has six months to reinstate a cause of action, even if the statute of limitations has already run. In a substantial case, I want to have that non-suit “in my pocket” during the trial in case our crucial witness doesn’t show up.
  
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Virginia & D.C. Car Accidents: The Importance Of Adhering To Statutes Of Limitation

When you’re in a car accident, the law provides you with an opportunity to bring a lawsuit against the person, or persons, who injured you. However, each state sets time limits in which you can do so. Known as statutes of limitation, these time limits are important to adhere to – or you may risk losing the chance for your day in court.
Attorney Doug Stevens
Doug Stevens, an attorney who has practiced law for 30 years and whose firm focuses on personal injury and car accident matters in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, knows which statutes of limitation apply like the back of his hand. He explained how these limitations are applied in the District of Columbia and Virginia:

• District of Columbia. In the District of Columbia, you have three years to file suit for negligence. Of course, if you represent a minor, the three years doesn’t start to run until his 18th birthday. That changes when the accident involved a wrongful death – and only a fool would wait more than a year to file a wrongful death case in the District of Columbia, but again, when someone dies in the District of Columbia, there are two causes of action. There’s a wrongful death action and a survival action. It has been held that a survival action can be filed after a year goes by, but it would be unwise to do so, absent special circumstances.
• Virginia Virginia is the trickiest of the three jurisdictions that I practice in because in Virginia, you have two years to file suit for injury, which is a full year less than Maryland or the District of Columbia. However, you have five years to sue for property damage. If you split a cause of action and take that action to verdict, you are barred from subsequently bringing the cause of action on the other part of the claim.
  What do I mean by that? What I mean is that if you sue me for bodily injury and get a verdict for that and then subsequently sue me for property damage, I would be successful in saying to your lawyer that he or she should not have split your causes of action. Since the property damage arose out of the same occurrence, he or she should have brought the property damage action in the personal injury suit – even though there was a separate five-year statute of limitations on property damage. So, this comes into play when someone is only suing for property damage.

Don’t miss the deadline
Stevens can’t stress the importance of not missing the deadline enough. He says that he even gets calls from his colleagues sometimes because, unlike him, they’ve missed the date. He explained:

I had a colleague that mailed the suit in, but mailed it to the wrong address and it wasn’t filed. I was one of his first calls because he was lamenting. I explained to him that although he had given up his client’s injury claim in the case, the property damage piece was actually worth more than the injury claim. He was overjoyed to realize that he still had a property cause of action.”
In addition, there’s another issue that comes up when you’re disengaging from representing a minor. Let’s suppose I’m representing you for your three-year-old injury claim. Do I tell you that you are free to wait 15 years to file a claim? Only a fool would wait 15 years to file a claim and risk an adverse witness disappearing, but that’s the law. That’s the rule and it gets very complicated.

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