Albuquerque Personal Injury Lawyer

Your claims may be subject to deadlines that lawyers call statutes of limitations or statutes of repose. If you don’t file a lawsuit by the applicable deadline, you lose. Period. If your claim is against a municipality, county, or state, your claim is subject to even more stringent deadlines. In New Mexico, a person injured as a result of a municipal, county, or state actor’s negligence must within 90 days send a letter called a Tort Claims Notice to certain people designated by the involved governmental entity. That letter must meet certain criteria. If you mail the letter late you lose. If you mail the letter on time, but don’t hit all the requirements for such a letter, you lose. If you hire Brendan immediately after you suffer injury as a result of the municipality, county, or state actor’s negligence, then he will timely mail a letter that meets all requirements of New Mexico law. And if you want to sue the federal government you have even more deadlines and duties that you should entrust to a lawyer like Brendan. For these reasons, you should hire a lawyer as soon as possible so that your lawyer can calendar and monitor the deadlines as s/he works to settle your claim out of court.

The value of your personal injury claim depends upon several factors. There are objective damages and subjective damages. First, how badly were you injured? This is generally measured by the total reasonably medically necessary medical expenses you incur to recover from your injuries. If you get a ton of unnecessary care, your case ain’t worth much. But if you get a lot of reasonably medically necessary medical care then your case value is objectively higher. How long were you out of work? Did you use sick time, vacation time, or paid time off to seek medical care and to get your car fixed? If so, you may recover for your lost wages. Were you unable to do common household tasks like laundry, dishes, cooking, and cleaning? How much property damage did you suffer? Did your injury cause a permanent condition that has reduced your capacity to work in the future? Your non-economic damages are purely subjective and typically involve claims for pain and suffering; loss of enjoyment of life; loss of consortium; nature, duration, and extent of injuries; and emotional distress. It’s one thing to say you were hurt. But HOW were you hurt? How did it change your life? How many hours a day were you in physical therapy? How many planned trips did you miss because you were stuck at home trying to recuperate? What effect did your injury have on your relationship with your spouse and family? Noneconomic damages are the type of damages that make injury claims worth more than the raw cost of getting you back to normal. There’s no formula for noneconomic damages. It’s all up to the lawyer’s wits and advocacy. So, how much is your case worth? It depends. Check out our blog for more information!

No legal fee unless Brendan recovers money for you! If Brendan recovers money for you, he’ll charge you a percentage of the gross recovery plus gross receipts tax on the legal fees plus his law firm’s expenses. Then, as the law demands, Brendan’s law firm will pay your injury-related medical debts and sums owed to reimburse your health insurance and motor vehicle Medical Payments carrier for your injury-related medical care. The rest of the money Brendan collects is yours! Hiring an attorney in a personal injury lawsuit comes with some risks. While Brendan will charge a legal fee only if he recovers money for you, you will need to reimburse the law firm for expenses incurred even if there is no financial recovery. Brendan is very careful about costs and will advise you along the way as to the expenses incurred. And he’ll consult with you thoroughly before subjecting you to any single large expense.

As you recover from your injuries, please understand that New Mexico law requires that you MITIGATE your damages. The law provides as follows: In fixing the amount of money which will reasonably and fairly compensate plaintiff, you are to consider that an injured person must exercise ordinary care to minimize or lessen his or her damages. Damages caused by his or her failure to exercise such care cannot be recovered. In a nutshell, if somebody’s negligence caused you damage, you must try to get better in the shortest amount of time possible. You must follow the advice of your medical providers regarding medical care, treatment, medication, restrictions on your activities, and occupational /speech /physical therapy ordered by a medical provider. You do not, however, have to submit to each and every one of a medical provider’s suggestions. You have the right to refuse medical advice on religious grounds. You also have the right to refuse medical care provided that you have a reasonable basis for refusal. If you think that you have a reasonable basis to refuse care please consult your personal injury lawyer to explore whether you can reasonably refuse the care. Failure to mitigate may also arise from excessive, unnecessary, or unconventional treatment. Head over to our blog for more information on this specific topic.

There are a few reasons you need and should hire a lawyer. First, the insurance adjuster is not your ally and s/he is never your friend. Adjusters are trained to minimize your injuries and damages in order to minimize the insurance company’s loss in an insurance claim. The adjuster will cast doubt on your choices for medical treatment, try to convince you that certain treatment methods don’t make a difference, and otherwise try to get you to give up on getting better and thereby abandoning your claim. Second, anytime you pursue an injury claim there are mountains of paperwork to deal with. It’s a real pain in the butt, especially if you’re not accustomed to keeping track of all the stuff you need to keep track of in injury claims. You have to keep track of doctors appointments, medical records, medical bills, and all kinds of minutia. It’s a great relief to just get your lawyer to deal with it. Third, there are nuances to insurance claims that are just plain confusing and burdensome. Your health insurance carrier may have a subrogation claim against any financial recovery you make. And if you’re on Medicare or Medicaid, the law compels you to make reimbursement. If you don’t, Medicare and Medicaid will come after you for their money. And they’ll get it. They might even penalize you for not having protected their interest. Juggling all your different claims, each insurer’s reimbursement claims, and several adjusters is an administrative nightmare if you aren’t set up to do it. Fourth, an attorney is trained to make sure that the insurance company plays fair. When the insurance company doesn’t respond to letters, doesn’t adjust the claim fairly, and otherwise plays unfairly, an attorney can pursue the claim such that you may have an additional claim for insurance bad faith. Bad faith is a complicated area of law and one that attorneys study intensely. Finally, any insurance claim is maddening, especially if it involves your or a loved one’s personal injury and financial damages.

The timeframe for a case to settle depends upon the severity of your injuries, the available insurance coverage, the legal deadlines by which you must file suit (statutes of limitation or statutes of repose), and the ease with which I can prove that the other person was at fault, that is, liable for your injuries and damages. Your physical recovery is the first element of a case that dictates speed to settlement. You have a duty under the law to undertake actions to get better as quickly as possible. The litigation process is slow, although it sometimes results in settlements when the facts of a case suddenly look much better for the injured person or much worse for the injured person. So, how long does it take? It depends... Contact us for more help!

If the insurance company won’t settle your claim reasonably then you may need to go to court. But it’s really up to you. If you decide that you want to accept the offer, then Brendan will communicate that to the other side and your case will settle. But if you reject the insurance company’s offer and Brendan can’t get them to budge, then Brendan will likely need to file suit on your behalf. Even after Brendan files a lawsuit on your behalf, though, you won’t need to set foot in a courtroom for quite some time. Most of the pretrial hearings involve only the attorneys and a judge. On rare occasions, you may need to appear in court for a hearing. Your primary obligation, should your case result in a lawsuit, will be to answer and respond to discovery, which is fancy lawyer talk meaning “they want to ask you questions in writing, get your sworn answers in writing, and have you give them documents that prove your case.” The other side will ask questions you don’t want to answer and Brendan will object to many such questions. If you are anxious about filing a lawsuit please talk to Brendan about it early on in your case as it may influence the strategy Brendan uses in representing you.

When you’re mendin’, Call Brendan! Contact us TODAY and we'll help you figure out the rest.