Frequently Asked Questions
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What do I do if the at-fault driver’s car insurance is not returning my calls or dragging its feet after a Virginia car accident with injuries?

As your Virginia injury lawyer, I can help get the liability insurance carrier to tell us what’s going on in the case and figure out what your options are after a car wreck in which you were hurt.  If the problem is that the insurance claim representative is dodging your calls, then my staff and I can bug them enough to push them to get on the phone with me and tell me as your representative what’s going on.  Usually after a car wreck that’s not your fault, the main thing that you need from the other driver’s insurance company is to get them to deal with your vehicle’s property damage and rental car immediately.  Normally, this happens in a fairly smooth process but sometimes it can be a big hassle for you to get the at-fault motorist’s insurer to call you back.
Sometimes they won’t call you back because they are supposedly trying to investigate to figure out if their driver was really at fault or even had coverage with them.  Often this is the result of the other driver failing to be responsive to their insurance company as far as reporting the accident.  If this is the insurance company’s game, then usually your best avenue is to ask your own insurance to temporarily pay you on your property damage to fix your car and let them get their money back from the person who ran into you when the dust settles.  There can be a couple of tricky aspects of this in that you may have to pay some money for your deductible on your insurance to handle the property damage, and if you do not have rental car coverage, then you may not be able to get them to pay for it directly, but will have to do so out of your own pocket.  Ultimately, even if you have to pay for the rental car yourself, we can usually get you reimbursed from the at-fault insurance company, once it’s confirmed that their client was insured with them and was at fault.
About the editors: The motto at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharplaw firm is simple -“All we do is injury law.” We hope you were able to find the answer to your injury query. If not, please review our Virginia Accident Lawyer FAQ Library for additional information. If you’d like to speak to an actual attorney about your potential injury claim for free, please contact our office at (833) 997-1774.

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What do I have to do to prove I have a brain injury?

A traumatic brain injury is a unique type of injury because it is not readily visible. It is not like suffering a broken arm or facial laceration where the injury is immediately apparent. In order to substantiate your brain injury, medical records are the best proof so seek medical care. Medical testing may include CT scans, PET scans and MRI’s. Make sure that the results of these tests are included in your medical records. Once medical records are obtained, medical experts can testify about how the injury was sustained.

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What do I have to prove in order to recover in my case for a medical malpractice claim?

The law requires that you prove two things: (1) that the healthcare provider (doctor, nurse or hospital) violated the standard of care.  Standard of care simply means that the doctor did not do what a good thorough healthcare provider would do in similar circumstances and (2) that the healthcare provider’s failure to follow the standard of care caused the injury in question. 
These issues are determined primarily through the testimony of expert witnesses such as doctors or other healthcare providers in the specialty of medicine that is in question.  For instance, if there were an allegation that a radiologist misread a mammogram resulting in cancer to the patient, the plaintiff would hire an expert radiologist to testify that the treating radiologist was negligent, as well as hiring an oncologist who would testify that the cancer would have been treatable or removed if the radiologist saw the signs of the cancer in the first place.

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