Maison Law’s team of Stockton truck accident lawyers can represent you in a claim against Amazon when you’re hurt in an accident with one of their delivery trucks or vans. We can help you understand your legal options and what you need to do to get financial support under California law. Contact us today to set up a free, no-obligation consultation to get started.
How Can Our Lawyers Help You?
Not every truck accident requires a lawyer. In fact, there’s no legal requirement for a lawyer in any injury claim in California. However, when there’s serious injuries involved or the accident involves an Amazon truck, having our team on your side can be extremely beneficial. Here’s how our team can help you in one of these accidents:
- Determining liability – What sets an Amazon truck accident apart from other truck accidents is liability, or legal responsibility. Most of the time, the actual driver of the truck doesn’t work for Amazon directly. Rather, they operate as “independent contractors”, meaning that they’re the same as a private vehicle driver in terms of insurance coverage. So, in an accident with an Amazon truck, our team can help figure out legal responsibility and who you’ll actually file your claim against.
- Gathering evidence – The relative strength of your claim is going to rest on the evidence you’re able to present. We can help you gather things like medical records, pictures, videos, and other key pieces of evidence that can help you build a strong claim.
- Dealing with insurance – Having our team on your side is going to be helpful since an insurance company is going to be involved–and potentially Amazon itself. We have extensive experience in working with and dealing with tactics put forth by an insurance company to devalue your claim. More to the point, we can help you by taking control of making demands and reviewing any settlement offers you get.
- Supporting you – More than anything else, we take pride in making the process easier for you. We do this by providing support at every step of the process. While we can’t physically make you better, we can put you in a position where all you have to worry about is your physical recovery. Legally, we’ll support your interest in the entire process.
No matter what the causes were of your particular accident, there’s a specific process involved that will lead to you recovering financial support for your injuries. Still, there is a lot of variability in the process that depends on the specific circumstances of your accident.
Legal Process After an Amazon Truck Accident
While there’s indeed many different ways the legal process can go after an Amazon truck accident, there’s generally two options for kicking it off:
- Filing an insurance claim
- Filing a personal injury lawsuit
As an injury victim, you can choose which option you want and can even do both. Most of the time, though, it’s going to start by filing an insurance claim against the liable party–the person legally responsible for covering your injuries and damages. In a typical Amazon truck accident, that’s going to be the truck driver. However, there could be other parties involved, like:
- Amazon, if the driver works for them directly or they took actions that directly led to the accident
- The parts manufacturer
- A third driver
- Passengers or pedestrians
- Government agencies
Once you’re able to file the insurance claim, the company will investigate the incident, gather evidence, get statements, and ultimately offer you a settlement. If you want to take their offer, you can, but if you have serious injuries, the settlement likely won’t cover everything. At that point, you can move to a lawsuit.
In a lawsuit, we can represent you in court. This means we’ll file a Complaint, go to hearings, negotiate with the other team’s lawyers, and potentially represent you in a trial. Every case moves along differently, but this is a general outline of what happens. The ultimate goal, though, is to recover available damages.
What are Damages in an Amazon Truck Accident?
The answer here depends on the circumstances. Every truck accident is going to result in some type of damage, either to your car or to you personally. This includes Amazon truck accidents, as they are much larger and heavier than your vehicle. Also, the nature of these accidents and how they happen usually result in a similar vein of damages, all of which you can potentially recover in a claim:
- Medical expenses and bills
- Lost wages or lost earning potential
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of companionship or enjoyment of life
- Wrongful death expenses, if the accident is fatal
- Punitive damages, in some cases
One thing to remember about these damages is that you may not be able to recover them if you don’t file a claim within California’s statute of limitations, which is two years from the date of the accident. In addition, California’s comparative negligence rule comes into play, which holds that any percentage of fault you have in the accident will reduce your potential recovery by the same percentage.
What Can You Do to Strengthen Your Claim?
Because your potential recovery of damages is going to go a long way toward your physical and emotional recovery from the accident, you’re going to need to put together the strongest possible claim. Here’s what you can do to strengthen your claim:
- Get a baseline for your injuries – The first thing you should do is get medical attention. This will address any noticeable injuries, and can even find injuries that you don’t notice because of the adrenaline. This will give you a baseline for how hurt you are and what medical treatment you’ll need to get better.
- Gather any evidence – After you report the accident to police so they can respond, you should make sure to get as much evidence at the scene as you can. Take your phone for pictures and videos of the scene, any damage to the vehicles, and your injuries. You’ll also want to get the driver’s contact and insurance information for later.
- Pay attention – It’s important to stay alert and not make any statements where you admit a level of fault. Conversely, make sure to take down a timeline of the events and make note if the Amazon truck driver makes any statements about them being at fault.
Taking these steps are indeed very important to your legal options. However, it’s important to understand that you have the protection of the law regardless of the steps you take. That said, putting together the strongest possible claim and working with our team can make sure that you get what you’re supposed to from the Amazon truck driver.
Effective Legal Guidance From Stockton Truck Accident Lawyers
At Maison Law, we know how difficult a truck accident can be, particularly if it involves an Amazon delivery truck. These huge vehicles are all over the place in Stockton, which means that you could very well be involved in one of these unfortunate accidents. If this happens, our Stockton truck accident lawyers will be there to give you effective and strong legal guidance and support. To learn more, contact us today for a free consultation.
