Personal Injury Lawyer Serving Jackson, MS

Absolutely. A frequent tactic of defendants and their insurance companies is to try to put as much of the blame for the accident on you as they can. If they are successful, this will reduce the amount they have to pay you, but it doesn’t stop you from bringing a claim or recovering compensation. At Derek L. Hall, PC, our dedicated Jackson car accident attorneys and personal injury lawyers will work to prove the other party’s negligence and responsibility while fighting hard to prevent you from being unfairly blamed for any portion of fault that does not belong to you.

In most cases, you have up to three years to file a personal injury lawsuit, and after that time, you can be prevented from making a claim. However, depending upon the nature of the injury (car accident, medical malpractice, wrongful death) and the type of defendant (private person, employer, government, or military), the time frame may be calculated differently, and you may have to file a notice of claim within a matter of days after the accident. By contacting an attorney in Jackson as soon as possible after an accident, you can make sure that no important deadlines will be missed and that essential evidence is collected and preserved before it is lost.

At Derek L. Hall, PC, we believe that all people are entitled to high-quality representation from an experienced, successful attorney. We offer a free initial consultation, and if we take your case, we can represent you on a contingency fee basis. This means that our fee is contingent on whether we obtain a recovery for you. If we don’t get you any money, then we won’t charge you any fee. Also, we advance all the costs of the litigation, and our fees and costs are taken out of the judgment or settlement, so it won’t cost you any money upfront to pursue your case.

Personal injury damages generally fall into two categories – economic and non-economic. Economic damages are financial costs you experience such as present and future medical expenses (surgery, hospital stay, doctor visits, X-rays, medications, medical supplies, etc.) and lost income due to time you missed from work after the accident, or if you became disabled and cannot work at the same level, or at all, due to disability. Non-economic damages are meant to compensate you for harm you experienced such as physical pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of quality of life, loss of spousal relations, etc.

Mississippi also allows juries to award punitive damages in some cases. Punitive damage awards are meant to punish a grossly negligent defendant who causes injury through a willful, wanton, or reckless disregard for safety. Although you must meet a higher standard to prove punitive damages, Derek L. Hall, PC, will pursue punitive damages in all applicable cases.

It’s no surprise that the insurance company has offered you a settlement. Insurers want to settle the claim as cheaply as possible, and they especially want to get to you before you talk to a car accident attorney or personal injury lawyer to learn about your rights and the value of your claim. They know that when you’ve been hurt, you are likely worried about how you are going to pay your medical bills or make up for the income you’ve lost during the time you’ve missed from work. They know how tempted you will be to take a check that looks big enough to cover your current expenses. But remember that settling your claim by accepting an offer means that you are forever giving up your rights on that claim. If you later find out that your expenses were much greater than you anticipated, you can’t go back and try to get more money from the insurer or the responsible party.

When you hire Jackson personal injury attorney Derek L. Hall, the insurance companies know better than to offer an unreasonable lowball settlement. We start preparing your case for litigation from the very start, and if a fair settlement cannot be reached that fully compensates you, we are ready and able to take your case to trial. The insurance companies know this and will often do all they can to settle with us and avoid a trial.