25+ YEARS EXPERIENCE • 99% SUCCESS RATE • $100+ MILLION RECOVERED

Goodyear Car Accident Lawyer

A car crash — even a minor one — can upend your life. They can cause physical, mental, and financial trauma, and the resulting injuries can produce pain and disabilities that prevent you from working or even caring for yourself. The stress and shock of a car crash can also affect your mental health, producing PTSD and other long-term injuries.

Your mental and physical injuries can trigger a downward financial spiral. You need treatment so you can get back to work. But you need to work to afford treatment. Even if you have health insurance, your out-of-pocket costs for copays and deductibles can force you to choose between paying for medical care and meeting your living expenses.

Car accident victims can pursue injury claims against at-fault drivers under Arizona law. The idea behind this claim is to shift the burden of your losses from you to the person who caused them. A Goodyear car accident attorney from Gerber Injury Law can help you with your claim.

Since 2009, we have represented thousands of clients while earning a reputation as a trustworthy and professional team. Contact us for a free case evaluation to learn about your legal rights and options for pursuing injury compensation.

Why Choose Gerber Injury Law for a Car Accident Case?

The lawyer who handles your case could have a significant impact on the outcome you obtain. The lawyer you choose should know injury law and have experience handling these types of cases. You will often know how good a lawyer is by their history of success.

Gerber Injury Law makes the claim process as stress-free as possible so you can focus on your health. We shift the burden of dealing with insurers and insurance attorneys from your shoulders to ours. Above all else, we remain committed to the highest in client service.

Ken Gerber has over 25 years of legal experience, first as a criminal prosecutor and then as a car accident lawyer. Goodyear, AZ, has benefitted from his skills as an injury attorney since the firm was founded in 2009.

He has recovered over $100 million in injury compensation during his career helping countless victims and their families improve their lives. The testimonials from his former clients illustrate the client satisfaction and results he obtains.

Ken Gerber has spent most of his career in the courtroom. His knowledge and experience help him tailor a legal strategy for each of the firm’s clients to meet their needs and goals.

How Will an Attorney Help With Your Car Accident Claim in Goodyear?

A lawyer will fulfill many roles during the course of your case. We provide legal advice, representation, and advocacy to you throughout the injury claim process.

Protecting your rights may require quick action on your part. A mistake early in the process, such as speaking to the other driver’s insurance company without a lawyer, can create problems that take months or even years to correct.

Insurers have a financial incentive to deny your claims, and you must avoid giving them any openings. We can provide advice and representation from the time you meet with a car accident lawyer. Goodyear insurers understand that we will work hard to protect the rights of our clients. The steps we take to assist you during your claim include:

Educate and Advise You

We begin our work during our first meeting. At your initial consultation, we listen to you so we understand your story and goals. We use our legal knowledge and experience to analyze your case. We will then educate you about your options for pursuing compensation.

We understand the claim process is new to most of our clients. We take our role as advisors and counselors very seriously. You will make many important decisions in your case, and we want you to have all the information necessary to make them.

We will calculate and track any deadlines in your case. For example, we will determine when you must file a lawsuit under Arizona’s statute of limitations. The firm keeps you informed about any developments in your case and what you must do to deal with them.

If you speak to us early in your case, we may be able to help you put your claim in the best possible condition. Some steps we may recommend include the following:

Visiting a doctor about your injuries
Following the doctor’s prescribed treatment plan
Tracking your medical expenses, such as copays and prescription costs
Recording when you miss work and the reason for your absence

We may also suggest that you refrain from posting on your social media accounts. Insurance companies and their lawyers love to get ahold of photos and videos that they can spin to “contradict” your descriptions of your injuries and their effects.

Assess Your Claim

Our attorney will assess the strength of your arguments during a free consultation. We can use this assessment to identify any potential weaknesses in your case and explain what you can expect.

Traffic crashes can fall into two scenarios. In rare situations, the other driver intentionally harms you. You might see this type of case in a road rage or police evasion case. To prove this claim, we must show that the other driver intended to cause harmful contact with you.

Negligence is much more common and provides the basis for most car accident claims. Negligence occurs when someone fails to meet the standard of care they owe you. This is a lawyerly way of saying that someone who is supposed to be careful was instead careless.

The law measures negligence objectively. A person can be negligent even if they did not realize their negligence. They are negligent if a reasonably prudent and cautious person would have acted differently in the same situation.

Negligence has four elements:

Duty of care
Breach of duty
Damages
Causation

All road users have a duty to drive carefully. They breach this duty by exposing other road users to unreasonable risks of injury or death by breaking traffic rules or acting in other unreasonably dangerous ways. Distracted driving, speeding, failing to yield, and other dangerous driving behaviors can support a negligence case.

Your injuries will result in financial and non-financial damages. To establish causation, accident lawyers in Goodyear and nearby jurisdictions must show proof that an injury was a foreseeable result of the driver’s carelessness.

Determine Your Possible Compensation

You need to know the value of your case so you can make informed decisions about it. For example, the value will tell you when the at-fault driver’s insurer makes a reasonable settlement offer.

You can recover compensation for economic and non-economic losses. Economic losses constitute all of the financial costs caused by your injuries. They can include amounts you paid or owe. They cover amounts incurred in the past as well as expenses that will occur in the future. Finally, they include amounts you paid or failed to earn.

Examples of economic losses include:

Past and future medical expenses
Income loss from missing work
Reduced future earnings due to disabling injuries
Out-of-pocket expenses associated with your injuries or their effects

We must prove the amount and reason for these losses. We teach you how to document these losses. Some records you may need include the following:

Medical bills
Bank statements
Credit card statements
Receipts
Pay stubs and time sheets

You can also seek compensation for non-economic losses. These losses are difficult to quantify because they do not have price tags. Non-economic losses erode your quality of life by depriving you of sleep and causing you to worry. Examples of these losses include:

Physical pain
Mental anguish
Disability
Dismemberment
Disfigurement

You prove your non-economic losses with medical records. The amount you receive will often depend on the severity and duration of your injuries. More severe injuries receive more than minor injuries. Permanent injuries get paid more than temporary ones.

File Your Insurance Claim

Arizona requires vehicle owners to buy liability coverage. Specifically, they must carry bodily injury liability (BIL) coverage that pays third parties injured by the drivers covered by the policy. Injured parties file claims against the at-fault driver’s policy. These people can include:

Occupants of other vehicles
Pedestrians
Bicyclists
Passengers riding with the at-fault driver, in most situations

The at-fault driver cannot file a claim against their liability policy.

A car crash claim describes the accident, including the covered driver’s role in causing it. It also includes supporting evidence such as the police accident report, crash scene photos, and witness statements. A Goodyear car accident lawyer from Gerber Injury Law will gather this evidence and file your insurance claim for a full and fair amount based on your losses.

The insurer will assign a claims adjuster to investigate your claim. Adjusters protect insurers from paying claims not covered by the policy. Some adjusters go too far, denying legitimate claims to frustrate you into giving up.

We cannot guarantee how an insurer will handle your claim. However, we can watch for the tactics insurers commonly use to pressure claimants without legal representation. Insurers often refrain from using these tactics once they know claimants have accident lawyers.

Goodyear accident victims who contact us often have a less stressful experience than those who represent themselves.

The adjuster will either accept or deny your claim. If they deny your claim, we will respond with evidence and arguments to try to persuade the adjuster to withdraw the denial. If they accept your claim, we can negotiate aggressively for a fair insurance settlement.

Defend You From Insurance Company Tactics

Insurance companies have a financial incentive to pay as little as possible for claims. Thus, the adjuster will use every tool at their disposal to delay or deny your claim. Even after the adjuster accepts the claim, the initial offer will be far below the claim’s value.

We stand up to insurers who try to avoid the legal duties imposed by their insurance policies. We push them to pay you what you deserve.

A common way for insurers to deny claims is to shift the blame for your injuries to you. Under Arizona law, your share of the blame will reduce your compensation. For example, if you bear 40% of the blame, you only recover compensation for 60% of your losses.

The insurer usually raises this defense in one of two ways. First, the insurer may accuse you of causing your crash. The adjuster will use any evidence, or even unfounded allegations, that you violated traffic laws, like speeding or tailgating before your crash.

Second, the insurer may accuse you of worsening the injuries you suffered. This accusation might take a few forms:

You did not seek treatment promptly
You ignored your treatment plan
You did not follow your doctor’s work restrictions

This is where your social media feed could become relevant to insurers. Photos of you playing with your kids could support an argument that you either violated your doctor’s recommendations or exaggerated your injuries.

We have many options for countering these defenses. We can use expert witnesses to reconstruct your crash and place blame on the other driver. We can also find witnesses who can testify that you did nothing wrong or could not have avoided the crash.

Litigate Against Negligent Drivers and Their Insurers

When the adjuster persists in a denial, we can file a lawsuit to continue your case. We can also file a lawsuit when the adjuster refuses to negotiate a fair settlement.

Personal injury lawsuits rarely reach trial. Instead, a lawsuit can push insurers into negotiating a settlement to avoid the cost of defending it. Insurers also know that jurors have little sympathy for billion-dollar corporations and could return a huge damages award.

However, we work hard to prepare every case as if it will reach trial. Our efforts pay off even if the case settles. We can negotiate a just settlement when we understand your case thoroughly.

The lawsuit begins with a complaint that describes the crash and how the other driver caused it. It also requests compensation from the at-fault driver for your losses.

The insurer will hire a law firm to defend the at-fault driver. After the driver answers the complaint, we will conduct discovery. During this phase of the lawsuit, the parties exchange evidence. We get to preview the driver’s defenses. We also show them the strength of your evidence.

The judge managing your case will decide pre-trial motions. These decisions will shape the evidence and arguments the parties present at trial.

You, as the plaintiff, decide whether to have a jury trial or a bench trial for your case. You will likely lean toward a jury trial since jurors will sympathize more with you than with the insurer fighting you. However, we will work with you to weigh the risks and benefits of each option.

During your trial, each side presents its evidence. We will explain your case to the judge or jury and advocate for a fair and just damage award.

Contact a Goodyear Car Accident Lawyer Today

A car crash can affect every part of your life, from your physical health to your finances. Arizona law gives you the right to pursue compensation for the losses you suffer when someone else is responsible for causing your crash.

Gerber Injury Law has over 25 years of experience, including 19 years handling car accident cases. Our Goodyear car accident attorney guides you through this complex process by acting as your advisor, representative, and advocate. We work hard to earn your trust and respect.