Automobile Accidents
The modern litigation attorney perhaps deals with no matter so often as suits and claims arising from motor vehicle collisions. The St. Louis area, including all of Missouri and Southern Illinois, contains many thousands of miles of Interstate Highways, Federal and State Highways and routes, city streets and intersections, rural roads, private drives and parking lots. All of these create the potential for a variety of personal injury and property damage claims. Consequently, the courts in and around St. Louis are teeming with lawsuits arising out of MVAs, whether brought on behalf of local residents, property owners, trucking and cargo firms, or out of state drivers who are injured while traveling through the area. Our attorneys are experienced with all of these.
To be effective, an attorney must know which claims should be resolved quickly and which must be defended vigorously. This experience allows the attorneys at Leritz & Plunkert to quickly wade through the clutter and identify those claims that have merit and those that do not, to recognize the cases that will have jury appeal, the cases where the plaintiff (or the defendant) will have difficulty in producing evidence to support a claim or defense, and other matters. This early recognition of the vital issues allows us to identify how the defense or resolution of the case should proceed.
When it is apparent that the potential damages or the liability issues, or both, are significant, we are able to immediately turn to the experts with whom we have built solid professional relationships to provide critical opinions and evidence. These include forensic accident reconstruction experts, engineers, physicians, regulatory and industry experts, to name a few. The sooner these professionals are able to collect and analyze the facts of a case the more effectively their opinions can be used to resolve of defend the case.
The value of an automobile accident case, furthermore, can depend in large part on the forum in which it is pending. The attorneys at Leritz & Plunkert try cases in all of the venues in and around St. Louis. This ranges from heavily urban population centers, to suburban counties, to rural locales. Each of these counties, in addition to having unique jury pools, has their own culture of judges, local rules and opposing attorneys. Our experience allows us to immediately consider these issues in determining the value and issues in a case, and allowing our clients the same insight.
The ability to efficiently and effectively defend an automobile accident case is the result of experience which allows our attorneys to immediately recognize the nature of the claim, analyze the liability of all drivers involved, determine the scope of potential damages, to identify the proper entities and add any appropriate missing parties to the lawsuit. An issue that is often missed by less experienced lawyers when handling an MVA case is the potential counterclaim against the other driver (not to be confused with a comparative fault defense) for personal injury or property damage. Our attorneys are trained to recognize such claims, determine whether they are supported by the evidence and fully prosecute them.
