Morgantown Car Accident Lawyer

The adjuster who calls you two days after a wreck is pleasant, sympathetic, and doing a job. Every question on that call has a purpose, and the purpose is not to get you paid faster.

I know that because I used to be on the other side of it. Earlier in my career, I represented insurance companies, and I can tell you what happens inside a claims file. Liability gets a number, damages get a separate number, and the adjuster works to reduce one or both. The friendly call is aimed at the first. The medical release is aimed at the second. The quick check is aimed at closing the file before either one develops.

None of that makes adjusters villains. It makes them employees with metrics. But it does mean you should not handle them alone.

I have practiced in Monongalia County for over thirty years. If you were hurt in a crash here, call (304) 594-1800. Free to talk, no fee unless we recover.

Free Case Evaluation

Four Things About West Virginia Law That Decide Your Case

1. This is a fault state. The at-fault driver’s insurer owes your damages. There is no no-fault benefit that pays your treatment while liability gets sorted out. Proving what happened is not one part of the case. It is the foundation of every other part.
2. Two years, usually. You have two years from the crash to file, and two years from the date of death in a wrongful death car accident case. If a city, county, or state entity is involved, the notice requirements are much shorter, and people miss them constantly. If a government vehicle or a road condition is anywhere in your facts, call somebody now rather than in eighteen months.
3. Partial fault does not end you. You can recover as long as your share is not greater than the combined fault of everyone else, and your award is reduced by your percentage. This one rule explains most of what the other side does in the first month. Every point of fault they shift onto you comes off the top, so they go looking for it early, on tape, before you have counsel.
4. The minimum limits are not enough. West Virginia’s mandatory minimum liability coverage was low when it was written and has not kept up with what a surgery costs. Uninsured motorist coverage is required on your own policy at those same minimums, and underinsured coverage has to be offered to you. Whether you bought the underinsured coverage is very often the single fact that determines whether a serious injury case is worth pursuing.

Wrecks in This Town Are Not Generic Wrecks

I have watched Morgantown traffic change over three decades, and the crash patterns here are specific.

Twenty-five thousand students arrive and leave on an academic calendar, which means the roads reset every August with a population that does not know them. Move-in weekend, home football Saturdays, and the end of each semester produce entirely predictable spikes. I mean predictable. I could tell you the weeks.

Downtown was laid out before cars. High Street and the grid around it mix narrow lanes, heavy foot traffic, on-street parking, and drivers looking for an address instead of at the road. Doorings, backing collisions, and low-speed impacts that produce disproportionate injuries. Juries sometimes struggle with that last category, which is why those cases need the medical proof built carefully.

Then the higher speed conflict points. The I-68 and I-79 interchange. The Route 705 commercial strip, where through traffic meets constant turning movements. The Cheat Lake and Chestnut Ridge corridors.

And deer. West Virginia has been at or near the top of the national rankings for as long as anyone has kept them. Those wrecks cluster in the fall rut, and the serious injuries usually come from the swerve rather than the strike, on two-lane roads in Monongalia and Preston counties. Insurers treat them as single-vehicle events and close them fast. Sometimes that is right. Sometimes there is a road maintenance issue, a second vehicle, or an uninsured motorist claim nobody looked for.

What We Handle

Rear-end and intersection collisions. Head-on wrecks. Sideswipes and blind spot crashes. Pileups. Distracted driving and impaired driving cases. Hit and run. Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims. Single vehicle crashes caused by a road defect or a vehicle defect, which people almost never think to have looked at.

What Your Case Is Worth

There is no calculator, and anyone who gives you a number on the first call is guessing at you.

The pieces are medical expenses incurred and reasonably expected, lost income, lost earning capacity, physical pain, emotional harm, permanent impairment, disfigurement, and the available insurance, which is frequently the ceiling on everything else.

I want to be direct about one of those. Lost earning capacity is usually the largest component in a serious case, and it is the one adjusters undervalue most reliably, because it requires a vocational opinion rather than a stack of bills. If you cannot go back to the work you did before, that is the number that matters, and it will not appear in the file unless somebody puts it there.

The other thing worth saying plainly. Some injuries do not show up at the scene. Traumatic brain injury, disc herniation, rotator cuff tears. They surface over days and weeks. Settling before you have a diagnosis means settling for less than the case is worth, and it is permanent. People come to me a year after cashing a check, and there is usually nothing I can do for them.

How the File Gets Reduced

• The early call, before you have seen a specialist, where “I’m doing okay” becomes evidence.
• The recorded statement. You are not required to give one to the other driver’s carrier, and I have never seen it help anyone.
• The blanket medical authorization, drafted broadly on purpose so the defense can go through your entire history looking for a prior complaint in the same body part.
• The treatment gap. Any stretch where you were not actively treating becomes an argument that you had gotten better.
• The quick offer, arriving right when the bills start.
• Social media. Any photograph of you doing anything, presented without context.

Once we are retained, all of that runs through this office instead of through you.

If It Just Happened

• Call 911 and get a report. Unreported crashes get treated as suspicious no matter how reasonable it seemed at the time.
• Get evaluated the same day. Adrenaline hides things, and a same-day record is worth a great deal later.
• Photograph the vehicles, the scene, the roadway, marks on the pavement, and your visible injuries.
• Get witness names and numbers before people drive off.
• Report it to your own insurer, factually and briefly.
• Do not give the other side a recorded statement, do not sign their authorization, and do not sign a release of any kind without having someone read it.
• Follow your treatment plan. Every missed appointment becomes a defense exhibit.

Working With This Firm

I am a National Board Certified Trial Attorney, AV rated, Super Lawyers designated, and a member of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum. Before law school, I served as a jumpmaster qualified paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division.

I limit the caseload on purpose, which means I turn down cases. If I take yours, I know its facts.

211 Everhart Drive, Suite 200, Morgantown. We answer the phone at any hour.

Questions I Get Asked

How long do I have?

Two years in most situations. Shorter, sometimes much shorter, if a governmental entity is involved.

The other driver had no insurance.

Then we look at the uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy, which West Virginia requires. If their limits were too low rather than absent, underinsured coverage fills the gap, assuming you bought it.

Do I have to give a recorded statement?

Not to the other driver’s insurer. No.

It might have been partly my fault.

You can still recover so long as your share is not greater than the combined fault of the others. Do not talk yourself out of a claim based on your own read of a wreck you experienced from inside the car.

What does it cost?

Contingency. No fee unless we recover, and the consultation is free.

How long will it take?

Depends on your injuries and whether liability is contested. I generally will not settle until your treatment has stabilized enough to know what your future care requires. Settling early is quick, and it is expensive.

Call

If you were hurt in a crash in Morgantown or anywhere in north central West Virginia, call (304) 594-1800.

Call us today to find out how we can help you.

Free Case Evaluation