Car Accident Lawyer in Monroe

You need a Louisiana car wreck injury lawyer who’ll fight for your right to recover compensation from the liable party in your wreck. The Monroe personal injury lawyers with Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys have 679+ years of combined legal experience helping Monroe car wreck victims get the compensation they need to heal. Call our Monroe law firm today at 318.716.3888 or fill out our easy-to-use online form for a free consultation about your case.

As the largest city in northeast Louisiana, Monroe is full of cars, trucks, and other traffic, which means a higher rate of car accidents than its neighboring towns. If you’ve been involved in a Monroe traffic accident, you could be experiencing pain, missing work, and stressed about your mounting medical bills. If these are caused by another person’s negligence, you might not know where to turn.

What Causes Monroe Car Accidents?

Car accidents in Monroe are caused by a variety of factors, but all of them have one thing in common: they result in serious injuries, thousands in property damage, and sometimes wrongful death. The following have been found to be the most common causes of car wrecks in the Monroe area:

• Speeding: Nearly 1 in 3 car crash deaths in Monroe are caused by speeding.
• Drunk driving: Alcohol severely impairs a driver’s ability to focus and to react to changing road conditions. At driving speeds, this can lead to a serious crash.
• Distracted driving: Eating, grooming, and texting while driving is such an epidemic in Louisiana that the State Legislature has passed some of the most comprehensive distracted-driving laws in the country.
• Aggressive driving: Behaviors such as tailgating, cutting off other vehicles, hard braking, and other reckless driving habits increase the risk for a deadly crash.

Most Dangerous Monroe Roads and Intersections

In Monroe, some roads’ traffic patterns are such that they see more accidents than the average. Be especially careful when you’re driving in the following areas as they have been proven to be especially dangerous for drivers:

• I-20 Frontage Road
• W. Elmwood Drive
• US-80, Vernon Lane
• Park Avenue
• Mississippi Street
• S. 10th Street
• US-80

Monroe Car Accident Claims

There are three paths you can take when seeking compensation for your damages through a car accident injury lawsuit. Depending on the circumstances of your wreck and the other party’s liability, your lawsuit could pursue damages under negligence, product liability, or wrongful death. When you hire a personal injury attorney from Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys, we’ll help you navigate your case and collect the maximum compensation you’re owed.

Negligence

A driver can be negligent when causing an accident through a failure to observe their duty of care to keep other road users safe. Any driver who places the people around them in an unsafe situation is practicing negligent behavior, but the most common negligence cases involve

• Drunk drivers
• Distracted drivers
• Aggressive drivers

Product Liability

Wrecks can be caused by defective car parts, including faulty brakes, a blown-out tire, broken seat belt latch, or even faulty airbag. When these basic functions fail, it’s often due to a product defect that the manufacturer should have known about and corrected before selling you the car.

If you’ve been injured because of a defect in your car or the other driver’s, you could sue their manufacturer in a product liability case. These cases can become complicated, so it’s important to hire a knowledgeable product liability lawyer from Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys.

Wrongful Death

If you’ve lost your partner, parent, child, sibling, or other loved one in a car crash, you may be eligible for compensation under Louisiana’s wrongful death statute. This law allows deceased victims’ families to seek compensation for costs such as

• Funeral and burial costs
• Lost wages
• Medical expenses
• Loss of consortium with the deceased
• and others

Determining Liability After a Monroe Car Accident

Liability for your Monroe car crash is determined through civil courts using a concept called pure comparative negligence. Under this system, a car accident can legally be caused by more than one person or company, and each party is liable for a share of the damages based on their percentage of fault.

Applying this concept to your case means two things:

1. Multiple parties could owe you compensation for your losses, for example
   • Other drivers or passengers, if they contributed to the crash
   • Employers or government entities, if they failed to properly maintain infrastructure
   • Product manufacturers or auto repair shops, if they made or repaired a faulty part
   • Or others
2. Even if you’re found partially at-fault, you might still be awarded a portion of the damages you seek. For example, if you and another driver are found to share equal blame in an accident that cost you $10,000, the other driver can be ordered to pay 50% of your losses, or $5,000.

In the best case scenario, the opposing party should have insurance as well. However, their insurance claims can potentially complicate matters regarding your case. The complicated nature of motor vehicle accident claims is one of the reasons finding a competent personal injury attorney in Monroe, LA is so important to finding the compensation you deserve.

Compensation You May Recover After a Monroe Car Wreck

Every case is different, so you need a Monroe car wreck lawyer to examine the evidence before you can know how much you can recover. However, the following are some types of recoverable damages that you might be able to recover after being a car accident victim:

• Medical expenses
• Physical therapy costs
• Lost wages, including future wages if you can no longer work
• Pain and suffering
• Property damage

If you lost a loved one to the accident, your family might also be entitled to specific, wrongful death damages, including the following:

• Funeral and burial expenses
• Loss of protection and support
• Loss of wages and benefits previously provided by the deceased
• Loss of consortium

Rarely, you may be able to recover punitive damages, which are intended to punish the defendant and discourage them from the behavior that led to the accident.

Do I Need a Police Report to File a Claim?

While you can file a claim without a police report, a report can serve as a crucial piece of evidence in your case. Louisiana law stipulates that you must contact the police after an accident involving drunk driving, bodily injury, death, or property damage over $500. However, you should report even minor crashes to the Monroe Police Department.

Why should you always file a police report? The answer is simple: the details in the official police report will serve as a definitive record of your accident’s circumstances. If you don’t have an official report to document everyone’s actions, the jury will have to weigh your word against theirs, which will probably lead nowhere.

Experienced Monroe Car Accident Injury Lawyers

If you or a loved one has been injured in a Monroe automotive wreck, call Gordon McKernan Injury Attorneys for a free consultation at 318.716.3888. A dedicated personal injury lawyer will speak to you about your case and get started right away.

Our goal as your car wreck attorney is to help you through this traumatic situation, get the financial support you need, and cover the costs you have incurred as a result of your injuries. When you hire our team, you will get the protection you deserve, and you will pay no money to us until we win your case—that’s the G Guarantee.