Did you lose a loved one due to another’s negligence? You need to know what to expect after a wrongful death. Give our Atlanta lawyer a call.
Choosing the Best Attorney
One of the most difficult types of claims that we encounter are wrongful death cases. A wrongful death claim is one that arises when someone has lost their life due to the negligence or carelessness of another. It is exceedingly important to make sure that you find a personal injury attorney that is experienced in handling wrongful death cases. Wrongful death cases involve very specialized knowledge, and you need to make sure that you have someone that knows how to work them through to conclusion. At Gunnels Injury Law , we have handled many wrongful death cases successfully, and we know what to do in these cases to present them in the best possible light.
It’s also important for you to know that your attorney has knowledge about how the insurance industry works. These types of claims involve insurance money as compensation, and it’s important to know that your attorney can get you through that system as efficiently as possible. I spent many years of my career representing insurance companies and defendants in these wrongful death cases before I decided I was on the wrong side, and that I should be helping people that deserve compensation. I can take that experience that I learned in working for insurance companies and put it to use for my clients in helping them navigate the insurance process. I know what gets their attention, I know what works, and I can put that to work for you.
Finally, it’s important to know that you have an attorney that will take a case all the way through trial, if necessary. Insurance companies know that there are a lot of attorneys who will not take a case to trial. Those attorneys do not get the best offers and the best resolutions for their cases because the insurance companies don’t fear them.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
One thing that we frequently see that can be very detrimental to a wrongful death claim is having the client delay too long and not pursue the case quickly enough. When a wrongful death claim is involved, generally the person who would bring the claim is grieving. That person has lost a significant loved one, and that person is having a lot of other things to deal with and just doesn’t feel the mental energy is there to bring forward a wrongful death claim. They also may have concerns about going through the process because they know that nothing that can be done in the court system that will bring their loved one back.
It’s important to remember that there’s more to a wrongful death case than trying to seek compensation for what has been taken. There is a factor of accountability in making sure this doesn’t happen to other people. When people who have suffered the death of a loved one refuse to pursue these claims, then the responsible party doesn’t get held accountable. It’s up to us to make sure our community is as safe as possible, and when we have these instances we need to make sure that there are consequences to the people involved. If there are no consequences, then actions don’t change.
Another thing we see people frequently do is hire the wrong attorney or not hiring an attorney soon enough, and that will create a very big problem in their case because things are not being done right. It’s an important part of the case to preserve evidence and make sure things are being done in the right order. If you hire an attorney who’s not experienced handling this type of case, it’s your case that’s going to suffer. Immediately hire an experienced wrongful death attorney, an attorney who can take your case all the way through trial, if necessary. Don’t delay and don’t hire the wrong attorney, or you might see this case vanish.
Finally, we often have clients who are not willing to do what’s required to preserve or present their case in the most effective fashion. This is extremely important in wrongful death cases because the way you assign value in a death case is to be able to paint the picture of what the deceased person’s life was like and what they are missing out on in not being able to live out the rest of it. That can only be developed through people who knew the person, not just through the attorney. It’s important to make sure that you interact, to the extent your attorney needs, to be able to paint this picture.
Settlement Timeline
The answer to that is it greatly depends on the circumstances. When you have a wrongful death case and the liability of the at-fault party is clear, oftentimes those cases can be resolved relatively quickly. It’s dependent on the amount of insurance coverage that’s available.
For instance, if the at-fault party has $50,000 worth of coverage, the insurance company is not going to be able to give you that $50,000 quick enough. Those cases can resolve much more quickly. If you have a commercial truck that’s caused the death and has commercial insurance policy, generally worth millions of dollars, it’s very important to see those cases through as far as they can go, and those are the ones that the insurance companies will often fight about. It really comes back to the amount of insurance coverage available.
If the parties cannot agree and work out the claim, then a lawsuit has to be filed. Lawsuits for personal injuries in Georgia have a two-year statute of limitations. They have to be filed within two years of the date of the incident. From the time that the lawsuit is filed, a pretty fair estimation of how long it would take would be somewhere around one to three years to get it resolved.
Damages Available
We’re sorry that you find yourself in that position, but we’d like to help you navigate the legal circumstances of your claim.
Benefits that are applicable in these types of claims involve, first, various monetary values associated with the life of the person. A person whose life has been wrongfully taken from them has lost a great deal, and their estate is entitled to compensation for what that person missed out on in terms of experiences that they would have had in their life. Another type of damages is lost earnings that the person might have had in terms of future salary or future income. A third type involves the companionship that they would’ve brought to a partner or family member and that the person has now been deprived of as a result of the wrongful death.
It’s important to, in a situation such as this, hire an attorney who has experience with wrongful death claims because they can be very different than general personal injury harm cases. If you find yourself in a circumstance where you feel like you may have a wrongful death case related to the death of a loved one, please give us a call as soon as you can in the process so we can begin helping your work through the process and preserve your claim so it can be presented in the most effective way possible.
If you have lost a loved one due to someone else’s negligence in Georgia, you may have questions about what to expect after a wrongful death.
Contact experienced Atlanta wrongful death attorney Christopher Gunnels at Gunnels Injury Law today to arrange a free consultation.
Let our experience work for you.
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