Obtaining money after a car accident hinges on establishing who is at a fault, or legally liable, for the accident and, therefore, your injuries and other losses. Sometimes there is no dispute as to who caused a car accident. In other cases, our task is to investigate and compile evidence that clearly establishes liability for your car accident.

Establishing liability is necessary for us to persuade an insurance company or a jury of the compensation you deserve for your injuries and other losses.

Every car accident is different, and each client has their own needs. At Ben Bronston & Associates, our car accident lawyers work directly with crash victims to meet their needs and seek results for them.

Every case begins with a free initial consultation with an experienced car accident attorney who will assess the potential for a successful claim and what pursuing a claim will involve. Once engaged, we will begin to investigate the car accident to determine what happened and who is at fault and should be held liable to you.

Texas Auto Insurance Law and ‘Fault’ in an Accident

In the world of car insurance and accident claims, Texas is considered a “fault state” as opposed to a “no fault” state. If you have been in a car accident in Houston, Laredo, Dallas, Austin, or elsewhere in the Lone Star State, you must show who is at fault before their auto liability insurer will pay a claim for damages.

Some other states have become “no fault” states, in which auto insurance claims are to be paid according to terms of each driver’s policy, regardless of a finding of fault, or liability. But not Texas.

In Texas, auto insurers pay accident claims according to the policyholder’s degree of fault. In some situations, drivers share fault. In such a case, Texas follows a doctrine known as “proportional comparative fault,” which says the compensation you receive will be reduced according to your comparative degree of fault.

For example, if you are found to be 30 percent at fault, the total amount you would have received will be reduced by 30 percent. If you are judged to be more than 51 percent at fault, you would not be compensated.

Who is at fault and by how much becomes an issue when a driver in a car accident denies responsibility. Their insurer, always looking to save money on a claim, can side with their policyholder and deny the claim or dispute portions of the claim.

When an insurance company denies their policyholder’s liability for a car accident, you likely must turn to the courts, through a personal injury lawsuit, to resolve the matter. Your lawsuit, in addition to indicating the amount of damages you deserve, must make a case that the defendant (the other driver or another party) should be held liable — at fault — for your losses. It must establish the other party’s liability. You must also establish the extent of your losses and the amount of compensation you deserve.

This is the work Ben Bronston & Associates can do for you after a car accident in Texas. We thoroughly investigate car accidents. We roll up our sleeves and do the work necessary to establish liability in car accidents that have harmed our clients.

How We Determine Fault in a Car Accident

To develop a comprehensive car accident claim for you, Ben Bronston & Associates is prepared to investigate the crash you were in to determine how it happened and who should be held liable. Depending on the complexity of the accident and other circumstances, our investigation may include:

• Visiting the accident scene. Valuable information about a car accident may be gathered at the site of the crash if we can get to it before time, weather and other factors degrade it. This includes skid marks, wreckage and debris, road conditions that may have contributed the accident, etc.
• Reviewing police reports, including 911 tapes if available. Police may have cited the other driver with a ticket. A ticket and/or being convicted of a traffic violation can be strong evidence of a driver’s liability, but is not necessarily conclusive. Civil liability for a crash is separate from violation of traffic laws. Even if the other driver wasn’t ticketed or convicted of an infraction, they could still be held liable for the crash and required to pay compensation.
• Examining vehicle damage. The type and extent of damage (dents, broken glass, sheared parts, etc.) can indicate how a car accident happened.
• Interviewing witnesses. We will obtain statements from you, any passengers in your vehicle, and bystanders who may have witnessed the accident. Once a lawsuit is filed and the discovery process is initiated, we will obtain a statement from the defendant(s) in the suit, including the other driver or other party(s).
• Establish driver activity. A driver’s activities prior to a crash may have a bearing on liability, such as if he or she was drinking or potentially driving while distracted. If we can establish activity over a long period of time, this points to fatigued or drowsy driving as a possible factor in the accident. This information may come from obtaining access to the driver’s:
  • Cellphone records
  • Debit and credit card receipts
  • Job or school attendance records
  • Social media accounts, where many at-fault drivers incriminate themselves.
• Reviewing auto parts and vehicle reports. Sometimes a faulty part or vehicle system (brakes, steering, tires, airbags, etc.) has caused or contributed to a car accident. Such defects could also make injuries worse than if the defect didn’t exist. Recall notices or reports about similar accidents may indicate that we should pursue a third-party claim to hold a negligent manufacturer liable for the accident.

Two recent societal and technological advances have created potential sources of car accident evidence that we also need to move to access quickly after an accident:

• Security cameras. Though Texas has banned red light cameras, there are many private security cameras at shops, apartment complexes and other properties in urban areas that pick up traffic footage. Some drivers use their own dash cams to record traffic. One of our first tasks in a car accident investigation is to determine whether such footage may exist and then obtain a copy of it. It is important to do this quickly because security footage is typically not kept long without a reason to maintain it.
• Event data recorders (black boxes). These instruments, which record a variety of information about a vehicle’s operation just prior to a crash, are increasingly in passenger cars, as they have been for years in commercial trucks and aircraft. This data should be retrieved and downloaded from all wrecked vehicles in a crash before they are destroyed or the EDR can be tampered with. EDR data can tell us a car’s speed, acceleration, braking, steering angle, air bag deployment, number of crashes (one or more impacts during the accident), and more.

In some cases, how a complex crash happened remains elusive. We can then turn to professional accident reconstruction consultants who are skilled at the forensic work required to determine how accidents occur. They investigate and provide reports to us that become solid evidence in a claim, and the consultants can also provide expert testimony before a jury, if needed.

If you have been in a car accident and are considering contacting an attorney, we urge you to contact Bronston & Associates in Houston as soon as possible. Allowing your attorney’s investigators to begin work before evidence degrades or disappears helps to ensure that we can establish liability in your car accident and obtain the compensation you deserve.

Who Is Liable in a Car Accident Claim: Car Owner or Driver?

While we typically refer to the driver at fault in a car accident and their liability, it is proper to remember that the insurance coverage on the vehicle is usually what counts. A personal injury claim in a car accident will seek compensation through auto insurance in the vast majority of cases.

Car owners are required to insure their vehicles. As such, the insurance follows the car. Therefore, an insurance claim or a lawsuit will name the owner of the vehicle, though someone else may have been driving the car at the time of the accident.

Most car insurance policies are meant to cover multiple people, such as in the case of a family vehicle. The car owner may be required to name all of the licensed drivers in the household, such as their spouse and teenage children who drive, stating that any one of them is authorized to use the vehicle.

If you were in a car accident caused by someone who was driving a car as part of their job, it could be that their employer owned the car. In this case, we would look to the employer and their insurance, potentially including their business liability insurance, for compensation to you.

Let Our Houston Attorneys Work to Establish Liability for Your Car Accident

In most car accident claims, if you are to obtain compensation you must be able to establish the satisfaction of an insurance adjuster or a jury that another party was at fault. If a driver or their insurance company disputes your claim, it will be important to work with an experienced car accident attorney who has the skills and resources to investigate and establish evidence of liability.

Contact Ben Bronston & Associates in Houston today and experience the difference. Engage an attorney who is interested in your health and welfare, and who will expend the time and effort required to obtain an insurance settlement that will cover all your car accident losses.

We’ll start our work for you with a free, no-obligation review of your case. If we see an opportunity to obtain money for you in a car accident claim, we’ll investigate and fight for you on a contingency-fee basis. We won’t charge you unless your case concludes with a payment to you. Call us today.