Gresham, OR Car Accident Lawyers

Gresham, OR Car Accident FAQs

When should I contact a car accident lawyer in Gresham, OR?

You should contact our Gresham, OR car accident lawyers as soon as possible after the accident. Even if you are in the hospital, we can still meet with you for your initial case evaluation. We can visit you in the hospital or conduct a case evaluation over the phone or via video call.

If you are not able to meet with us due to your injuries, a loved one may contact us on your behalf. We will let your loved one know what steps to take.

My accident was not in Gresham, and the at-fault driver and I live in another city. Do I have to use your Gresham office?

No. You can work with our car accident lawyers in our office in Tacoma, WA, or even Portland or Eugene, OR. We also have an office in Salt Lake City, UT. Because of jurisdiction and venue laws, you should visit the office closest to where you or the defendant lives or closest to where the accident took place.

The insurance adjuster for the defendant’s insurance company keeps calling me. What should I do?

Ask the adjuster to contact our office. If you have given the insurance adjuster this information previously, tell the adjuster not to call you again. Additionally, let our office know that the insurance adjuster continues to reach out to you. We will also inform the insurance adjuster that he or she should not contact you.

I need to have my car fixed before my case settles. How do I get it fixed?

We will contact the insurance company on your behalf to get information about repairing your vehicle. Once an investigation has been completed, you can take your car in for repairs. In many cases, insurance companies have separate departments for property damage and personal injury claims. You can discuss getting your vehicle repaired with the property damage department, or you can ask us to obtain the information you need for the repair shop to submit expenses.

If the driver who hit me was on the job, can I also collect from his or her employer?

If the employer is found to have some fault in the accident, you can also sue the employer’s insurance company. For example, if the investigation finds that the brakes failed on a delivery car and the employer knew that the brakes were malfunctioning but told the driver to drive the car anyway, the employer could share in the responsibility for your damages.

If I caused an accident because of a defective part on my vehicle that the manufacturer would not recall, can I sue the manufacturer?

Before we answer this question, we should talk about how product recalls work. Overall, vehicle manufacturers, and other manufacturers, only recall dangerous products as a last resort.

Furthermore, recalls are always voluntary. Government agencies like the Food and Drug Administration don’t have the power to recall dangerous products. Most of the FDA’s funding comes from user fees which are paid by the companies it is supposed to regulate. So, the FDA only issues recalls as a last resort as well.

Once vehicle recall notices go out, manufacturers must only deliver them to the recorded owners. Many used cars are on their second, third, or even fourth owner. As a result, a victim could be driving a vehicle with serious safety issues and not know anything is wrong.

Most defective vehicle claims in Oregon, like a defective tire, fall into one of the two categories listed below:

• Design Defect: The 1970s Ford Pinto is an example of a design defect. To make the car lighter and cheaper, designers put the Pinto’s unlined gas tank behind the rear axle. As a result, it was overly prone to rupture and explosion, even in a relatively low speed accident.
• Manufacturing Defect: 1990s Takata airbags are an example of a manufacturing defect. To cut costs, the manufacturer replaced a stable and expensive chemically propellant with ammonium nitrate, which is unstable and cheap. Ammonium nitrate is basically the same compound Timothy McVeigh used in the Oklahoma City truck bomb.

Failure-to-warn, a related claim, is a very common claim with dangerous drugs. Frequently, drug companies know about possibly dangerous side effects, yet they do not sufficiently warn customers about the risk.

The unforeseeable use doctrine is basically the only legal defense in a defective product claim. Manufacturers are not liable for damages if individuals misuse a product, and that misuse causes injury. The misuse must be extreme, like using racing tires to go off-roading in the Cascades.

Is it possible to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder after an accident?

PTSD is not a processing disorder which randomly affects some victims and doesn’t touch others. Instead, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is also known as an Operational Stress Injury (OSI) in some armies of the world, is a specific kind of brain injury.

Generally, brain injuries destroy brain tissue. The culprit is usually a trauma injury, or a shockwave generated by a loud noise, like an explosion or a car wreck. PTSD doesn’t destroy brain cells. Instead, it rearranges them. Extreme stress, like being in a car accident, enlarges the amygdala (brain area that controls emotional responses) and shrinks the cerebral cortex (logical responses).

These two brain sections must be balanced for people to function effectively. An imbalance leads to symptoms like . . .

• Depression
• Anger
• Hypervigilance
• Flashbacks and
• Nightmares.

Since PTSD changes the brain’s chemical composition, PTSD also involves chemical treatments to restore this balance. Like other psychoactive drugs, such as narcotics, stimulants, depressants, and hallucinogens, effective PTSD medications are very powerful and have many unpleasant side-effects. Not all patients can tolerate the required dose.

A Gresham car accident lawyer may obtain financial compensation for PTSD just like any other kind of injury. So, compensation for economic and noneconomic losses is available, as outlined above.

What if the accident was my fault?

Initially, “fault” is just a preliminary determination in a car crash case. It’s based on the evidence immediately available at an accident scene. In the final analysis, “fault” does not matter. Liability for damages is what counts. This determination is based not only on evidence at the scene, but also on evidence that’s available later, as well as certain legal doctrines.

That being said, car wrecks often have more than one cause. For example, an intoxicated driver might collide with a drowsy driver.

If a jury determines that both drivers were partially liable (responsible) for the wreck, jurors must divide responsibility on a percentage basis. Oregon is a modified comparative fault state with a 51 percent limit. If a victim was no more than 50 percent responsible for the wreck, the victim is entitled to a proportionate share of damages.