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Take key steps at the scene to capture Louisiana car accident evidence then call an experienced local injury attorney to preserve your rights. Get answers inside to common questions on handling these cases and pursuing maximum compensation.
| Action | Description |
| Seek Medical Attention | Even if injuries seem minor, consult a doctor |
| Call an Attorney | An attorney can guide the legal process, prove negligence, collect evidence, negotiate insurance |
| File Before Statute of Limitations | 1 year in Louisiana to file a claim and receive compensation |
| Insurance Coverage | Description | Purpose |
| Uninsured Motorist (UM) | Covers costs if at-fault driver has no insurance | Allows you to claim from your insurer |
| Underinsured Motorist (UIM) | Provides additional funds beyond at-fault driver’s minimum coverage | Covers costs exceeding other driver’s coverage limits |
| Liability Insurance | Minimum required insurance in Louisiana | Pays for other parties’ damages you cause |
| Collision | Covers repair/replacement of your car after accident | Needed if you want your own vehicle damages covered |
| Next Step | Reason Why |
| Seek medical treatment | Diagnose injuries; needed for insurance claim |
| Document post-accident symptoms | Some injuries have delayed onset |
| Keep all medical records & bills | Proves costs for economic damages claim |
| Avoid recorded insurance statements | Prevent chances of misconstrued words |
| Contact experienced injury attorney | Navigate legal process; get fair claim value |
| Save related receipts & documents | Supports claim for accident-related costs |
| Type of Evidence to Collect | Purpose |
| Photos of damage, injuries, scene | Proves extent of incident |
| Witness statements, contact information | Provides liability support |
| Copy of police report, citations | Assigns fault, evidence |
| Other driver’s license, registration and insurance | Identify/verify at fault party |
| Ambulance, ER, and urgent care receipts | Support injury claims, treatment costs |
| Medical records of diagnoses, treatment, prognosis | Assess injury damages |
What Information Should I Keep or Collect?
Personal injury attorneys want to preserve every detail. Inquiring about helpful evidence assists your case. At the scene, take photos, get witness info, police report, and other driver’s insurance. Keep medical records and bills to include costs in your claim.
What should I do at the scene of a Louisiana car accident?
At the scene of the accident, you should take the following steps:
Taking these steps can greatly help document evidence, ensure the at-fault driver is held accountable, get compensation for your losses, and protect your health after a crash. Consult a Louisiana accident attorney for guidance on the legal process and preserving your rights.
At the Law Office of John W. Redmann, L.L.C., in Gretna, Louisiana, we offer a free initial consultation to discuss your car accident case. The following are examples of questions our New Orleans car accident attorneys often receive from accident victims.
Immediately after a vehicle accident, your top priority is your health and safety. Ensure the scene is safe and call the authorities. The next step is to seek medical attention, even if you think your injuries are not severe, you should still consult with a doctor.
After consulting with a physician and receiving any medical treatment, you should:
Personal injury attorneys representing those who have been involved in car accidents want to preserve every detail of your accident, case, and injuries. Inquiring with an attorney about the kinds of pictures, evidence, witnesses, documents, and other information that will best assist your case will help you understand what you can present at court or in your claim against the responsible party.
At the scene of the accident, you should:
Every car accident is unique, and the amount of compensation owed varies dramatically from each case. While most vehicle accident cases seek damages such as:
Your lawyer should be able to specify exactly what damages you may be entitled to depending on the details of your accident and injuries.
However, you should be aware of the different categories of damages and when you can collect certain damages vs. other damages.
The two main categories of damages in an auto accident case are economical and non-economical.
Economic damages include:
Non-Economic damages include:
In some situations, punitive damages may be awarded in addition to compensatory damages. Punitive damages are awarded by courts to punish the culpable party for deliberate and wanton, intentional, or fraudulent acts.
In Louisiana, the statute of limitations for an automobile accident case is one year from the date of the accident. If you were injured in an automobile accident, you may have a legal right to seek damages for your losses.
You must file your claim before the statute of limitations runs out in order to receive compensation for your injury. If you do not file in a timely manner, your entitlement to damages for your injuries may be lost.
However, even though the statute of limitations in Louisiana for car accidents is normally one year, there are certain exceptions:
It is not always in your best interest to rely on exceptions, and if you can, you should always file your case within the one year deadline provided by the Louisiana statute of limitations.
After a car accident, a skilled personal injury lawyer can be incredibly beneficial in navigating the often hectic and complicated world of insurance claims and damage settlements. When it’s time to battle for your best result, an attorney provides:
Most injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis, which means they only get paid if your claim is successfully resolved.
Unless your injuries are small and the other party admits culpability, handling a vehicle accident claim on your own might be risky.
If your own negligence contributed to the accident, an attorney can advise you on the shared blame rules in your state and how they can affect your case.
Your lawyer will be able to:
Furthermore, once your lawsuit begins, your lawyer will be crucial in preparing your case for trial—and even in taking your case to trial if it does not settle.
Even while a lawsuit is rarely necessary, the fear of legal action provides a great deal of negotiation power when it comes to reaching a fair settlement.
Finally, and perhaps most crucially, having a competent attorney on your side levels the playing field, especially when you’re up against a huge insurance company’s experience and resources.
When it comes to proving fault in an automobile accident, the drivers, their insurance companies, and their lawyers are likely to depend on the legal concept of negligence to make their arguments for a successful claim.
Negligence is thoughtless behavior that results in the injury of another person.
A person can be negligent in a car accident by:
To avoid causing damage to other motorists, passengers, or pedestrians, a driver must exercise reasonable caution. If a driver fails to exercise reasonable caution and someone is injured as a result, the driver may be held financially accountable for the injuries and other damages sustained by that person.
Car accidents usually involve negligence, especially when they involve more than one vehicle. In order to prove negligence, all four elements must be shown:
Every driver owes a basic duty of care to other road users. By law, drivers must operate motor vehicles with caution and care in order to avoid injuring others.
Proving a duty of care is easy and if there was some wrongdoing or accident, you will have no trouble showing a breach of duty. As long as you can show that a reasonable person would not have reacted in the same way, then you will have proved the second element that the defendant breached their duty of care.
You will need to prove that the defendant’s actions or failure to act caused the plaintiff’s injuries. In order to assess the viability of your case, the court system requires proof of this loss. You must establish that the defendant was the actual and proximate cause of your injuries.
In terms of actual causation, you must establish that you would not have been harmed had it not been for the defendant’s activities (“but for” test). Not only that, but the defendant had to be the proximate cause of the injury – the harm had to be foreseeable.
Once you have proven all other factors, showing damages is relatively easy. You and your attorney will be able to easily prove negligence as long as you collected all relevant evidence and documentation.
Sometimes, injuries are more serious than you realize. Here are two examples:
Medical prudence and common sense says to go to your doctor and have him or her give you a clean bill of health and send you home. We would rather see you healthy than wealthy after a serious accident.
If we believe someone else is accountable for your injury, we will be able to help you obtain excellent medical care and attention without you having to pay upfront.
The short answer is no, don’t give a statement to the other driver’s insurance company or even to your own insurance company.
You may want to believe that the insurance company will be reasonable and pay what it should, but that is simply not the case. In asking you to provide a recorded statement, the insurance companies are hoping you will say something that will give them an excuse not to pay or to pay less than you deserve.
They may ask you to explain the accident multiple times and then put all of your answers side by side, under a microscope. If there are any minor differences, they will accuse you of changing your story.
In our decades of experience, it is best to explain the accident to your lawyer and let your lawyer explain it to the insurance company.
Most personal injury cases settle without the need for a trial. However, if you are not represented by a capable and respected attorney, according to proven research, you are likely to be offered a small fraction of what your case is worth. Even if you do not have to pay lawyer fees, statistically you are going to pocket far less than if you have an attorney represent you.
It’s also extremely important for you to be aware of issues such as:
Do yourself a favor and get a free consultation with a respected attorney before you attempt to settle your case on your own. Consider the age-old adage,
“Any person who attempts to represent himself or herself has a fool for a client.”
The answer depends on a lot of factors, including:
But it mostly depends on the advice of your counsel. You should have 100 percent faith in the advice of your counsel.
Louisiana, like many other states, has a typical fault-based insurance system, which means that whoever is judged to be at fault in a vehicle accident is responsible for the losses suffered by individuals wounded in the accident.
This usually entails using one’s insurance to pay for medical bills and lost wages. However, an uninsured or underinsured driver who causes an accident will be held personally liable for all losses, including those to people or property. The money for damages to provide compensation is taken directly from their wallets, regardless of insurance coverage (or lack of).
Even though the law requires every vehicle in Louisiana to carry a minimum amount of liability insurance, many do not have it. In this case, other sources of coverage may be available.
For example, if the driver of the car was not the owner, he or she may have coverage through another vehicle. You may also have uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.
It costs you nothing to consult with an attorney and find out what coverage may be available.
Unless you have uninsured motorist coverage (UIM), if you are in a car accident caused by someone else and that person does not have insurance, you may be left to foot the bill for your accident-related bills.
If the other motorist does not have insurance or is unable to pay, this vehicle insurance coverage permits you to submit a claim with your own insurer.Underinsured motorist coverage provides you with the additional funds you require when the other driver just has the bare minimum of coverage and your expenses surpass that amount.
Louisiana is a “no pay, no play” state. If you do not have insurance, the first $15,000 of your personal injury and vehicle damage claim is excluded. However, there are exceptions in cases of DUI, hit and run, and accidents that occur in furtherance of committing a felony. In addition, you can still recover compensation for damages above $15,000. We offer a free initial consultation to evaluate your case.
If a driver is uninsured or underinsured, they can still be held personally accountable for the harm they caused to other person or property. However, if you, the victim, do not have auto insurance, you could lose your right to reimbursement in the event of a collision, even if there is no fault on your part.
If a victim of another driver’s negligence is uninsured at the time of the accident, Louisiana’s No Pay, No Play statute prohibits them from recovering the first $15,000 in physical injury damages and the first $25,000 in property damage.
The law is to encourage drivers to obtain insurance. However, it only requires a basic level of insurance, and a driver is not obligated to obtain any additional motor insurance.
There are many intricacies and specific provisions to the no, pay, no play law. Some of the complexities around the law are the exceptions it allows. There are quite a few exceptions to the no pay, no play law that could govern your case, some of those include:
For every personal injury claim at the Law Office of John W. Redmann, L.L.C., we get paid only if we make a recovery. You will not be charged any fee or cost if we are not successful.
To schedule a free consultation, contact us online or call our office at (504) 500-5000. We serve clients in Gretna, Harvey and Greater New Orleans, throughout Louisiana and across the United States.
We understand your case. With years of experience, proven results, and clients backing our work, rest assured you are in safe hands.
The Law office of John W. Redmann, LLC, has experienced attorneys for alll accident related claims, and more. In case you cannot find a specific solution here or want to explore some of the other services we provide, check our website. Do not delay calling us after a car accident. Contact us today!