After a truck accident in Florida, a lawyer’s primary objective is to protect your rights and pursue the compensation you deserve. While protecting your rights is only one of many benefits that a lawyer provides, it is an essential legal service.
Truck accident cases are often complex, high-stakes, and tense. Having an effective lawyer on your side can be a major relief, especially if you’re still affected by your injuries.
How Do I Protect My Rights After a Truck Crash in Florida?
The surest way to protect your rights after a Florida truck crash is to hire a lawyer. An attorney can take over all responsibilities for your case and provide a valuable buffer between you, trucking companies, and insurance companies.
If you have yet to hire an attorney, you can still protect your rights on your own by:
- Not talking about your accident: While you can use your discretion about how to discuss your accident with loved ones and friends, it’s best to remain tight-lipped. This is especially true about any interactions with others involved in the accident, trucking companies, insurance companies, and their lawyers.
- Seeking full medical evaluation and treatment: If you have any doubts about the evaluation and treatment you have received so far, go back to the doctor. By receiving a comprehensive exam, you protect your health and also document all accident-related injuries in irrefutable detail.
- Deferring to your attorney: Once you retain an attorney, let them take the lead. Our firm has successfully represented many Tampa truck accident victims, so we understand the tactics that insurers and trucking companies use to deny accident victims fair compensation—and we know how to respond accordingly.
You should be able to focus on your recovery peacefully, and that’s what hiring a law firm allows.
How an Attorney Ensures Your Rights After a Florida Truck Accident
Your attorney can take several precautions specifically meant to protect your rights, including:
- Managing all case-related communications: Trucking companies, insurance companies, and their attorneys can use your words against you. That’s why we make sure you don’t have to speak to these parties directly or without representation.
- Advising you about any written or oral statements you must make: Sometimes, a truck accident victim must make a written or recorded statement. If that happens, our legal team can prepare you. We may even be able to help you craft a written statement, proofreading it for accuracy and keeping your rights in mind.
- Providing general advice and answering your questions: We can provide general advice meant to protect your rights, such as visiting a doctor to create a medical record of your injuries. We might also advise you to take (or not take) certain actions.
Protecting your rights generally also means protecting your financial recovery. When a truck crash victim allows anyone to violate their rights, it could mean forfeiting some or all of the compensation they deserve—reinforcing the importance of hiring a qualified attorney to manage their case.
A Trucking Company May Try to Violate Your Rights in Several Ways
As the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety explains, most truck accidents cause greater harm to passenger vehicle occupants, not truck drivers. Trucking companies know this. A liable truck company may try hard to avoid paying for the harm that their employee (or their own negligence) caused.
Insurance companies also seek to avoid paying large settlements whenever possible. One or both of these parties may try to avoid paying you fairly by:
- Pressuring you to make statements: Liable parties know that it’s to their financial advantage to place fault for the accident on you. Therefore, they may make multiple attempts to contact you, ask you to make statements on the record, and use your words against you.
- Delaying your claim: All states have a deadline for filing personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits. Per Florida Statutes § 95.11, that deadline is generally two years from the date of the accident. Insurers may try to delay your claim for several reasons, including forcing the statute of limitations to expire.
- Making false claims about the accident: Liable parties may accuse you of causing the collision, making false claims about the accident that portray you as responsible.
- Destroying unfavorable evidence: A trucking company that has valuable evidence in its possession may try to destroy that evidence. Your attorney can file a legal document demanding that the trucking company preserves all useful evidence.
There is no telling how a trucking company or insurance company will respond to an accident. However, it’s possible that you will face multiple bad-faith tactics. Our legal team can protect you.
Beyond Protecting Your Rights: How a Truck Accident Attorney Fights for Your Financial Recovery
In addition to protecting your rights, our truck accident team can:
- Determine who is financially liable for your damages
- Secure all evidence of the liable party’s negligence (including evidence from the truck)
- Document your damages
- Calculate the exact cost of your damages
- Hire experts to strengthen your case
- Lead settlement negotiations on your behalf
- Take your case to trial, if necessary
We will work hard to negotiate a fair settlement for you. But if we can’t, we’re fully prepared to fight for you in court.
Contact the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine Today for Your Free Consultation
The team at the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine provides these legal services and more in the most professional, compassionate, and client-focused manner possible. Hiring us does not require any upfront or out-of-pocket compensation either—you owe us nothing unless we win your case.
Let us fight for the justice and financial recovery you deserve. To learn how our attorneys can protect your rights after a Florida truck crash, contact the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine today for a free consultation.
