If you have been injured in a car accident, it should be no surprise if the insurance company you are dealing with needs additional information to verify your injuries and the expenses behind them. This part of information gathering is called discovery, and it may be difficult to deal with on your own. This is part of the reason that injury victims hire attorneys.
With that, we offer the following post to give our readers an idea of what discovery is all about.
For the uninitiated, discovery is important for finding and developing evidence to support the basic elements for a negligence claim. These include the duty to use reasonable care, the breach of said duty, proving that the breach was the proximate cause of the injury, and damages. So through the discovery process, your personal injury attorney will seek information such as:
– Who was the owner of the vehicle involved in the accident
– What is the person’s driving record (i.e. whether he or she has been in any accidents or been convicted of DUI)
– Who is the driver’s insurance carrier, and whether claims have been paid before
– Were there any specific mechanical defects that could have led to the crash
Depending on who is being sued, the discovery process could be very simple; in which the process could take a few weeks, or it could be very complicated; in which it could take a number of months. If you have additional questions about discovery, an experienced attorney can help.
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