Can I still bring an accident claim even though I have been mistakenly or wrongfully ticketed with causing a car accident? So, unfortunately, this happened, this scenario happens much more frequently than what we’d like. And often what will happen is a law enforcement officer will come to the scene following a car accident, investigate very poorly. Or maybe the officer simply doesn’t like you, doesn’t like your attitude. Uh, the, the, there are a plethora of different reasons as to why the law enforcement, law enforcement officer may make a mistake, but they wrongfully issue the citation or the ticket to you for causing the accident. And I have day in and day out car accident clients come to me and they say, I, I was shocked. Uh, you know, the other person ran the red light, red light turned into me, he turned in front of me, whatever the case may be.
And I got the ticket. What do I do about it, Mr. McQuaid? So this is my advice for this type of situation. You can still bring in accident claim, although the fact that you’ve been, that you’ve received a ticket really does, um, dirty the water. So the first step in the process is, and my advice to my clients is to fight the ticket. If you simply go down there and pay it and insurance adjusters going to look at that as some type of admission of guilt. Now they can’t use that against you in the civil case. Mind you, but they’ll look at it as an admission of guilt regardless. So fight the ticket. Cause most of the time this is just going to be a, he said, she said situation. Uh, and so when you go in front of the judge on this ticket, the judge is going to say, I don’t know who caused this accident.
I know Mr. Officer uh, cited you with it, but he wasn’t there to see it. And it’s just, he said, she said that’s a flip of the coin. That doesn’t exceed reasonable doubt, reasonable doubt, not guilty. And that’s normally what will happen. Or the other side just simply doesn’t show up. Boom. Not guilty that way. So a lot of these tickets you’ll get found not guilty if you, if you actually challenged them. So then what happens? You’ve got the not guilty. Hopefully you can find in an independent witness that will corroborate your story. Maybe the officer didn’t speak to the person. Um, whatever. Uh, you know, again, it could be a variety of different reasons or you can maybe find a video videotape of the intersection maybe from a business. If you’ve got something independent code to corroborate your story, then you’re in business and you can absolutely bring a claim.
Because again, on the other side, the insurance company’s client, they’re insured, it’s just going to simply deny it. And so if you’ve got something else, you’re in business. And then lastly, if you just simply bring a claim, yes they will defend it. But if the insurance company does not who exactly caused the accident, they may find that there’s some type of shared responsibility. Again, this applies to a, he said, she said, so you may not get the full value of your claim, but you may get a certain price, a certain portion of it. Maybe you get half of the value of the claim and often, guess what? That’s worth more than nothing. So you absolutely can still process and file a claim for injuries following a car accident, car accident. You just have to be smart about it and you have to have a little bit of luck on your side. If all those pieces fall into place, you may have a valuable claim at the end of the day that you just simply didn’t know or didn’t expect. So hopefully that answers the question about whether you can still bring an injury claim after you’ve been wrongfully cited or ticketed with causing the car accident.
*The above has been transcribed by a third party service and has not been checked for accuracy.
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If you or a loved one have been injured in an accident, then you should take the proper measures to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. Contact St. Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas today and speak with an attorney. For over 60 years our firm has been successfully helping people who have been injured due to someone else’s carelessness. We have been nationally ranked for decades by US News and World Reports as a Tier 1 law firm, which is the highest ranking that can be received. Sean McQuaid and Jonathon Douglas have dedicated their careers to continuing the firms legacy of superior legal representation.
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St. Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas
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