Las Vegas Car Accident Lawyer Who Answers Your Questions

Where do I start when everything just went wrong at once?

Start with your body, then the evidence, then the phone calls, in that order. Everything else can wait a day.

Maybe you are reading this from a hospital bed, or at the kitchen table with a neck brace on and a stack of mail you cannot face. The car is at a body shop. The other driver's insurance company has left two voicemails. Your boss wants to know when you are coming back. Somebody on Facebook told you to get a lawyer and somebody else said that makes you look greedy.

All of that is normal. Nearly everyone who calls us is carrying the same pile, and most are scared they are doing it wrong. You are not supposed to know how a Nevada injury claim works. The insurance company handles hundreds of them. A few good decisions in the first week matter more than almost anything later.

What should I do right after a car accident in Las Vegas?

Get safe, get checked by a doctor, and get the basics on your phone before the details fade. Nobody expects you to do it perfectly.

If your car can move, get it out of the lane. On I-15, US-95 or the 215, the second crash is often the one that hurts worse. Call 911 for any injury, even one that seems small. Metro, Henderson police, North Las Vegas police or the Nevada Highway Patrol will respond depending on where you are, and the report they write will follow your claim around for months. Ask the officer for the report number before they leave.

The other driver's insurance company keeps calling. What do I say?

Say very little, and agree to nothing that is recorded. The adjuster may sound kind, and some are. Their job is to close your claim for the smallest number they can justify.

On the first call, they usually want three things. A recorded statement, your medical history, and your signature on a form that lets them pull years of records. None of those helps you this week. A broad medical authorization lets them hunt for an old injury to blame, and a recorded statement is a chance to catch you on a word you used while you were still in shock.

You can give your name and phone number, say you are still being treated, and say you would rather not give a recorded statement right now. You do not owe an explanation. Do not say you are fine, because "fine" gets typed into the file in capital letters. Do not guess about your injuries or your speed. Do not sign a release, and do not cash a check that says it is a final settlement until you know what you are giving up. A fast check feels like relief when rent is due, and cashing one can be treated as accepting the offer.

Your own insurer is different, and your policy generally requires you to cooperate with them. If you were hurt, call us before you give anybody a recorded statement, your own company included.

Was it my fault, and does that end my claim?

No. Being partly at fault does not automatically end a Nevada claim, but the percentage of blame decides how much you can recover, so it is worth fighting over.

Nevada is an at-fault state. There is no no-fault system here that pays your bills no matter who caused the crash. The driver who caused it is responsible, and the law looks at each side's share. Under Nevada's comparative negligence statute, NRS 41.141, you generally can still recover if your share of the blame is no greater than the other side's, and your recovery is reduced by your share. If a jury puts you at 51 percent, you are shut out.

That is why adjusters work so hard to move even five or ten points onto you. You were going a little fast. You could have braked sooner. Each point costs real money, and it can tip the whole case.

The police report is not the verdict. An officer arrives after the fact, sees skid marks and two angry drivers, and writes an opinion. Fault gets decided by evidence. Photos, video, witnesses, the damage on the cars, the data recorders, the phones, and sometimes an accident reconstruction expert.

One more thing from Tim, who takes many of our first calls. People sometimes tell him what they think he wants to hear and leave out the part where they might have contributed. Please tell us the awkward part. We would much rather hear it on day one than get surprised by it in a deposition.

My car is in the shop and the hospital bills are coming. Who pays for what?

Your car and your body are two separate claims, and they move at different speeds. Keep them apart.

What if the other driver has no insurance, not enough, or just drove away?

There may still be money, and the other driver's policy is rarely the only place to look.

Nevada requires drivers to carry at least $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 for injury to two or more, and $20,000 for property damage (NRS 485.185). A serious injury can use that up fast, and some drivers on the road carry only the minimum or nothing at all.

Your own policy may include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which steps in when the at-fault driver has no insurance or too little. Nevada insurers generally have to offer it, and you can turn it down in writing, so check your declarations page or ask your agent. If a driver hits you and leaves, your own uninsured motorist coverage may apply, but Nevada generally requires that the other vehicle actually touched you or your car and that you report the crash to police within the time the law sets, so call the police right away. We have a page on uninsured motorist claims and another on hit-and-run crashes with the details.

Then think beyond the driver. If they were working, an employer may be responsible. A vehicle owner, a repair shop, the maker of a failed part, or a public agency that let a road fall apart may share the blame. We wrote that up in Beyond the Other Driver's Insurance.

Here is a real example from Dean's files. A driver hit two young girls in a crosswalk. He had a policy of half a million dollars, and the family had been told that was all the money there was. Dean sued the driver personally, went after his assets, and the driver ended up paying the girls north of $2 million out of his own pocket. We promise nothing about any other case. We tell you about it because the question is always who else is responsible, and a lot of lawyers stop asking too soon.

What is my claim really worth, and why is the first offer so low?

It is worth more than your medical bills, and the first offer is a number picked to close the file. Those two facts explain most of what you will experience with an adjuster.

A Nevada car accident claim is built from several pieces. Past medical bills. Future medical care, which is often the largest piece and the one you cannot see yet. Lost wages, and lost ability to earn if you cannot go back to the same work. Pain, suffering and the loss of things you used to enjoy. Property damage. In an ordinary car case, Nevada generally does not cap pain and suffering, so a jury can decide what it is really worth.

Adjusters see it differently. They work from formulas and software, they know most people want this over with, and they know many people do not have a lawyer who will actually file suit. Tim says the biggest fear he hears from callers is becoming a number in somebody's queue. The adjuster has a number for you too, and it is the lowest one that gets a signature.

Here is how that looks in practice, from Dean's own files. A woman was rear-ended in a small hit that did under $100 in damage to the car. She had a bone condition, and the impact broke bones and put her in surgery, with roughly $112,000 in medical bills. The insurance company split the bills exactly in half and offered $56,227.87, saying half was her pre-existing condition and half was their fault. Dean was furious, and he took the case to trial. The principle is often called the eggshell plaintiff rule. The person who causes a crash generally takes the victim as they find them. The jury awarded more than twenty times what the adjuster offered.

Dean also asks a hard question when clients are tempted by a first big check. If you accept a number and feel good about it, how would you ever know it was not worth four times that? Settle too early and you cannot reopen the claim when the surgery you were told you might not need turns out to be needed. We want to know how you will be doing a year from now before we put a number on the table.

We do not hand out ranges or averages on this page, because nobody honest can. What we can do is look at your facts and tell you how we would value them.

Do I even need a lawyer for this?

Maybe not, and we will tell you if you do not. Plenty of crashes only need a body shop and a patient phone call.

Tim took a call like that recently. A woman had been hit pretty hard, her car was wrecked, and she had no pain. She was worried about getting the car fixed and how her insurance worked. Tim walked her through what to say and what not to say to the adjuster on her property damage, and told her that without an injury she did not need an injury attorney. She got free advice and a straight answer. That is what a first call at our office is supposed to feel like.

You should talk to a lawyer before you talk to an adjuster in a few situations.

• You are hurt, you have been to a doctor, or you are missing work.
• Fault is disputed, or the other driver is saying it was you.
• The other driver has no insurance, left the scene, or was driving a work vehicle, a rideshare car or a truck.
• Someone died.

If you have an injury, you also have a clock, and we would rather you call early and find out you did not need us than call late.

We will be straight about the other side of it too. Dean will not help inflate a minor-injury claim, and he will not touch a staged crash. The so-called swoop and stop scheme, where somebody cuts off a car on purpose and gets rear-ended, is fraud, and it makes him angry. If the facts do not support a case, we say so on the phone.

I am visiting Las Vegas, or I live out of state. Can I still bring a claim?

Yes. If the crash happened here, the claim will usually be brought in Nevada and decided under Nevada law, which generally gives two years to file. Ask us before you assume your home state's rules apply.

Tourists get hit all the time in this town. A rental car on Tropicana, a rideshare from the airport, a drunk driver on Las Vegas Boulevard at 2 in the morning. Your flight leaves tomorrow and your life is somewhere else. See a doctor the moment you get home and say it was a car crash, because gaps in treatment are what adjusters look for. Keep your rental agreement, which can lead to coverage you did not know you had. Keep the police report number and any photos. Then call us before you talk to an insurance company, because you do not want to give a recorded statement from an airport gate.

Most of a claim is handled by phone, email and video, with your records collected from your doctors at home. If a case heads to court, we explain what that means for your travel before it comes up. Lawyers in other states send us Nevada cases, and Dean says they want somebody who has been in Las Vegas courtrooms a long time and has the insurers' respect.

What kind of crash was it?

The type of crash changes what we look for, and what the insurer will argue.

Rear-end crashes are not always as simple as they look. The other driver says you stopped short, the whiplash gets called minor, and a pre-existing condition gets blamed. Our rear-end collision page explains how those get fought. Intersection crashes turn on who had the light, and the answer is often sitting on a traffic or business camera that is about to be erased. We cover that on the T-bone page. Head-on, sideswipe, rollover and multi-car pileups each have their own fault puzzles, and in a multi-car crash the insurers will happily point at each other.

Some crashes have no other car at all. In one of Dean's cases, a driver lost control and the car rolled over, with nobody else involved. Many lawyers saw no defendant. Dean sued the car maker and the tire company, and spent about half a million dollars in costs. The other side offered somewhere around $300,000 to $400,000. On the eve of trial they came up with $5.5 million. If your crash involved one vehicle, a failed tire or a bad road, read our single-vehicle accident page.

If the other driver drove away, see hit-and-run. If a commercial vehicle hit you, our truck accident page covers the extra rules. A drunk driver can change things too, because in some cases it opens up claims, such as punitive damages, that an ordinary negligence case does not have.

How does a car accident case actually work, start to finish?

You treat, we build the file, we negotiate, and if the insurance company will not be fair, we file suit. Most cases settle before a jury ever sees them.

First, you get as better as you are going to get. Your job is to go to the appointments and be honest with the doctors. Ours is to collect the records, preserve the evidence, deal with the adjusters, and find every source of money. When your treatment reaches a natural end point, or we know what the future holds, we put together a demand with the medical proof, the wage proof and the story of how this changed your life.

Then comes negotiation. When it does not work, we file a lawsuit in the Eighth Judicial District Court in Clark County, which means written discovery, depositions and expert reports. Most cases go to mediation with a retired judge, who tells both sides the same thing. You cannot expect your best day at trial, and the other side cannot expect theirs. A fair number is somewhere in the middle, and Dean says most cases settle there. Whether you take it is your choice. We tell you honestly what we think.

How long does this take? Some cases resolve in months. Some run past two years. Tim says we do not rush a case to hit a number. We will not promise a date, because nobody who does is telling the truth.

What does it cost, and what is the first call like?

The first call is free, and you pay no fee until we win your case.

The fee is a percentage of the recovery and it is written in the agreement before you sign anything, so you see it up front. Case costs, such as records, experts and filing fees, are advanced by the firm. If the case does not produce a recovery, those costs are our loss and not yours.

The call itself goes like this. Tim, our office manager, often answers himself, including after hours. He does not start with a checklist. He starts by asking how you are doing, and how the crash has hit your home, your job, your kids, your pets. Once you are talking, he gets the facts. What happened to your car, how you are hurt, what insurance everyone has, and what pictures you took. Then we tell you what we see. If you need us, we say so and explain what happens next. If you do not, we say that, and give you some pointers anyway. Nobody pressures you to sign. You can read more on our page about what happens when you call.

If you hire us, we send a letter to the insurers so the calls stop coming to you. After that, we help line up the doctors, work with the body shop and rental, and keep you posted so you are not left guessing.

Why do people hire a trial firm for a car case?

Because insurance companies adjust a claim differently when they know the lawyer on the other side will actually try it.

Dean has been trying cases in Las Vegas for more than three decades. Adjusters learn which firms settle quickly and which ones file, depose, hire experts and go in front of a jury. If they know you are with a firm that fights, the first offer tends to look different. Dean puts it simply. A firm known for quick settlements gets the thinnest offers, because nobody on the other side is afraid of it.

Two of our lawyers, Marc Naron and Troy Clark, used to defend insurance companies, so we know what those phone calls are built to do. When a case calls for it, we hire experts from around the country, such as accident reconstructionists and life care planners, and we pay for them up front. Our results page shows cases where the first offer was only the medical bills, or nothing at all, and where the outcome ended up very different. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a future outcome.

If you do one thing today

Call (702) 500-7070 for a free case review, and ask us whatever is keeping you up. If you cannot talk yet, take photos and write down tonight's notes. We are here when you are ready.