Start Your Bus Accident Claim Before It’s Too Late

If you or a loved one find yourself in a situation where you’ve been injured as a passenger on a bus here in Mississippi, there’s a few things that I can recommend that you do that would not only be in your best interest, but that also may help you or your legal counsel later down the road. First of all, get the medical help that you need. The first thought on your mind shouldn’t be the legal claim, it should be getting medical attention if you’ve been injured. Get the help you need, get the treatment, do what the doctors tell you, and, most importantly, do the follow-up treatment. If they tell you to go to rehab, go to rehab. If they tell you to come in for a follow-up, come in for a follow-up. If they tell you to go see a specialist, go see a specialist. Focus on your health and getting better because ultimately that’s what it’s all about. If you don’t have your health, you really don’t have anything, as the saying goes. Get better, and get treated. Focus on your health first.

There are also legal benefits to people who get the medical treatment they need and who follow the doctor’s orders on all of the follow-up during their treatment and recovery process. A legal benefit to that is that we end up with a good, clean, consistent record of that person’s injury, their diagnosis, their treatment, and how all of that impacted their life throughout the timeline of that injury treatment and recovery. That has tremendous value later on down the line when we’re pursuing the legal claim that eventually will come. It has tremendous value from an evidentiary standpoint because we’re able to show those details and show the consistency of the treatment, but also it helps eliminate the gaps in records that we sometimes see that can cause or create problems. Medical treatment first; that’s the most important thing.

After you’ve taken care of yourself, don’t try to talk to the adjusters on your own. Don’t try to deal with the bus company or their insurance company on your own. You’re going to need legal representation if you’ve been in a bus wreck. Point blank, there’s no way around it. You are going to need legal representation if you were injured in a bus accident.

The quicker that you get that representation, once you realize you’re injured and that there’s going to be a claim, the more that your legal representation can do to protect your interests and rights to maximize the value of your claim and make sure that you are fully compensated and that you are paid the fair amount on your claim. This involves everything from documenting the site of the crash to getting experts involved early on, so they can do their work and documentation that’s going to help with your claim down the road, to dealing with the bus company, the insurance company, the adjuster, because you don’t need to be doing that on a claim like this. Getting legal representation involved early in the process is important.

Cases is which there are really catastrophic injuries or death bring out the attorneys that will just show up at your door and come knocking. Folks that you’ve never heard of, folks from three states over, show up knocking on victim’s doors. Try to avoid that. It doesn’t matter how many cases like that they’ve handled or what they tell you in terms of their competence, you should really just be wary and try to avoid attorneys like that.

The other sort of extreme, in terms of selecting counsel, involves reaching out perhaps to an attorney that the victim or their family already knows but in a different context— for instance, an attorney who did a deed for them or an attorney who handled their divorce, or the attorney who handled their speeding tickets. They may be good folks and they may have done a great job on the other work, but if you or a loved one have been involved in a bus accident, or some other type of major catastrophic personal injury event like that, you really need an attorney to represent you who does personal injury litigation day in and day out. You need someone who is not afraid to litigate the case, who’s not learning on the go, and someone who handles personal injury claims on a daily basis and is prepared to step right in and handle that litigation. It should not be someone who dabbles a little bit in this, a little bit in that, or who’s primary practice is something else. That’s no slight on anyone, it’s just good solid advice. If you were on trial for murder charges, you probably wouldn’t want to hire a personal injury attorney to represent you on that. You would want someone who’s up to speed on criminal trials and criminal representation. It’s the same thing with this – you want someone who deals with these particular cases day in, day out.

Those are the biggest pieces of advice in terms of what will get you on a path to recovery, protect your interests, and put you in the best position long-term if you or a loved one have been involved in a bus crash. Get the medical attention that you need, don’t in any way try to handle the claim on your own, get legal counsel involved early, and get appropriate competent legal counsel that handles personal injury claims on a daily basis and who will litigate your claim to get you maximum value and a fair payment.

If you have any additional questions about a bus wreck claim or any other type of personal injury claim, my name is Brad Morris. I’m here with Brad Morris Law Firm, PLLC. Just know that we’re available to answer your questions. There’s no charge for a consult of any kind. Just reach out to us through our website or give us a call, and we’ll try to get you whatever information you need, get you pointed in the right direction, and, most importantly, try to get you the help that you need and deserve on your claim. Again, my name is Brad Morris and I appreciate you taking the time to watch this.

When it comes to claims for bus accidents, some of the common mistakes that people make that I see here in my practice in Mississippi, are not getting treatment or following up on medical treatment if it’s situation where it’s less than a catastrophic injury. When buses are involved in wrecks, unfortunately the injuries involved are typically more severe – catastrophic injury, death, or pretty severe injury – so most folks in that situation are going to get emergency medical treatment. Common across all personal injury claims, just a mistake that people frequently make is not getting follow-up treatment and not following doctor’s directions. I have to raise that point as something that you don’t want a victim to do. Not getting the medical treatment that you need is a mistake you want to avoid.

Secondly, I think probably the biggest mistake people make, in terms of bus wreck claims or bus accident claims, is that, invariably, when a bus wreck happens, it makes the news, and there are lawyers out there – and I’ll say without commenting on the practice, but there are lawyers out there who show up at the doorstep or send people knocking on the door of victims and their families trying to sign up the case. To the other extreme, victims and their families sometimes look to attorneys with whom they have an existing relationship— maybe they’ve done a will for them or they’ve done some real estate deeds, or handled a bankruptcy or handled their divorce. The reality is what a victim of a bus wreck really needs is competent legal representation by an attorney and firm that litigates personal injury cases every day and that hopefully doesn’t have to go knocking on doors to get them. I think a common mistake is either putting trust into an attorney or representation that is a complete stranger that just shows up or, on the other hand, trusting in an attorney and representation that you may have a relationship with, that may be very effective counsel on other matters for you, but who just doesn’t have experience and doesn’t work daily in personal injury litigation.

Bus wrecks tend to be complex cases involving multiple parties. Most often, more than one person is injured, there are multiple high-value claims, and there are typically significant amounts of money at stake, both in terms of the personal injury claims and potentially punitive claims, etc. Bus cases, just by nature, are complex cases on litigation because there’s multiple angles on showing liability, both from a corporate perspective, driver perspective, other vehicles involved, and proving the case in terms of liability is just a different animal than a run-of-the-mill car wreck and is certainly very different from other areas of practice like bankruptcy, divorce, or criminal law.

Working up a complex personal injury litigation, specifically a bus wreck case, is going to involve certain types of experts, too, so it’s complex litigation that you just don’t want attorneys who are learning it on the fly. You need representation from an attorney who has been involved in complex litigation, who regularly litigates personal injury cases, who is not afraid to work up the case the right way and make the investment for the experts that you need and the investigations, and who will dig in and demand fair value for the claim on behalf of that client. That’s probably the single biggest mistake – rushing into representation or not putting some time and thought into who you choose to represent on the claim.

A bus wreck claim is not a claim anyone should try to handle themselves or have a family member just deal directly with the bus carrier or the company or their insurance company or that adjuster. It doesn’t matter how big or small the claim is, that’s just a claim that you can’t do on your own. You need legal representation, and you need to put some thought and consideration into who you hire to do that.

Those are the biggest mistakes I see people make with regards to these types of claims, be they a bus wreck or an 18-wheeler wreck. To the extent that you can avoid those mistakes, you’re doing yourself or your loved one a favor.

Here at Brad Morris Law Firm, we will do our best to answer your questions. We don’t charge anything for consults. The personal injury cases that we work on are strictly on a contingency fee basis, so you have nothing to lose reaching out to us. We will do everything in our power to try to get you pointed in the right direction and make sure you get the help that you need.

I’ve been asked the question whether I think it’s a good idea, if you’ve been involved in a bus crash in Mississippi, to try to talk to the insurance company of the bus carrier on your own. Let me just tell you, whether you are in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, or wherever, anywhere in the country, it is never a good idea, if you’ve been injured in a bus wreck, a car wreck, any other kind of wreck or injury, to try to talk to the insurance company for the responsible party on your own. Please, just don’t do it.

You start out that conversation at a disadvantage. What I mean by that is that insurance adjuster you’re going to be talking to spends every day working on claims like that. They spend every day adjusting claims, and they come into that conversation with a lot more knowledge than people who don’t work on claims like that every day. They have special training. They have policies and procedures in their organization that are all built around investigating that claim and looking for ways to reduce the value of your claim or to figure out a way to deny liability on that claim altogether. They’re good at their jobs because they have training, and they have practice, and if you don’t do it on a daily basis, you’re automatically starting out at a disadvantage with them. Please, for your own sake, don’t do that.

I really do truly believe, and it is sound advice, if you have been in a bus crash in Mississippi or anywhere else, that’s just not a claim that you need to even for a moment entertain handling on your own. You need legal representation. The things that you should look for in seeking out an attorney to represent you on a claim is someone who does personal injury litigation on a daily basis, has experience litigating claims, and has experience litigating complex personal injury claims like bus crashes and 18-wheeler wrecks. These bigger catastrophic injury and death claims are very different than than other cases. By hiring an attorney with the right experience, the likelihood of you getting a fair settlement is going to be much better, much higher. The likelihood of you saying or doing something inadvertently that gives the insurance company or that defendant’s company an advantage over you in your claim, is going to be much lower, as well, because you will have someone involved from day one who knows how to litigate the claim, avoid the pitfalls and can help you maximize the value of your claim and get fair value.

Whether you’re in Mississippi or anywhere else, know that if you’ve been in a bus accident, you should not be dealing with the insurance company or the bus carrier on your own. At the Brad Morris Law Firm, we have had a good deal of success for clients on these cases, representing them in catastrophic injury and death litigation, including complex litigation involving commercial vehicles. If you or a loved one have been involved in a bus crash and you have questions, or you just want to sit down for a free consult to discuss your case, reach out to us by our website or give us a call. We will do our best to get you the help that you need.