Best Car Accident Lawyers in Winston-Salem, NC in 2024 – Forbes Advisor

Unless it's just minor fender bender, a car accident often results in significant property damage, medical injuries, and emotional trauma. You probably want the at-fault driver to cover your costs through an insurance claim.

However, there are cases where the amount of insurance is not enough to cover your losses, or your insurance company tries to offer you too low a price or even denies liability altogether. In such cases, pursuing a car accident lawsuit may be the necessary legal step to get the compensation you deserve for the damages you have suffered.

In the following sections, you'll learn about deadlines for filing a lawsuit, important car accident laws, and how fault is determined in North Carolina, as well as other important information to help you file your claim.

Statute of Limitations for Car Accidents in North Carolina

After a car accident, many people are overwhelmed by the sudden financial burdens that arise – medical bills, lost wages due to being unable to work, car repair costs, and the emotional distress that often follows. The law provides a way to seek compensation for these damages from the responsible party, but that window of opportunity is not open forever.

The statute of limitations in a car accident is the legal time frame within which you must take action after an accident. In North Carolina, this period is three years from the date of the accident. If you miss this deadline, you lose your right to compensation for your injuries and damages.

In cases where death occurs in a car accident, surviving family members have two years from the date of the victim's death to file a wrongful death lawsuit, which may coincide with the date of the accident itself.

North Carolina Laws for Drivers

Here are some North Carolina car accident laws that all drivers should know.

Error-based system

North Carolina has a fault-based system for car accidents. This means that the person or persons responsible for the accident must pay for the medical bills and any other losses of the other driver and passengers. To ensure this, all drivers in North Carolina must carry car insurance with minimum coverage amounts that include:

• $25,000 for personal injury or death of a single person
• $60,000 as maximum coverage amount per accident
• $25,000 for property damage

North Carolina law also requires drivers to have underinsurance and uninsurance coverage. This coverage is important if the at-fault driver is either underinsured or has no insurance at all. If your injuries and damages exceed the at-fault driver's insurance limit, your underinsurance coverage can help cover the balance.

For example, if you seek $40,000 in compensation for your injuries, but the at-fault driver's insurance only covers $25,000, you can seek the remaining $15,000 from your own insurance.

Report a car accident

In North Carolina, you are required by law to report a car accident to authorities if it results in injuries, deaths, or property damage of $1,000 or more, or if it involves a vehicle that has been impounded by authorities. Once the accident is reported, the responding officer has 24 hours to file a police report and must forward it to the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles within 10 days.

Even if your accident does not meet the criteria for mandatory reporting, it is still advisable to file a report. An official report can be useful when making a claim with your insurance company. Regardless of the severity of the accident, you should never leave the scene of the accident without exchanging information with the other driver. Failure to do so, even for a minor accident, could result in a hit-and-run charge, which carries serious legal consequences.

Damage limitation

When suing for a car accident, there are two main types of damages you can be awarded: compensatory damages and punitive damages.

Damages are designed to cover the losses you suffered in the accident. These are divided into two categories: economic damages, which have a specific monetary value, such as medical expenses for car accident injuries, repair costs, and property damage, and economic damages, which cover losses that have no direct monetary value, such as emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life.

Punitive damages, on the other hand, are intended to punish the defendant when his or her actions were particularly egregious. They are not awarded in every car accident case and only come into play when the defendant's conduct is considered to be exceptionally harmful.

In North Carolina, there is no cap on damages, meaning you can recover the full amount of your economic and non-economic losses. However, punitive damages are capped at three times the compensatory damages or $250,000, whichever is greater. It's important to note that this cap does not apply if the accident was caused by drunk driving, which may allow you to receive higher punitive damages.

Question of liability in car accidents in North Carolina

Determining fault in North Carolina car accidents is particularly difficult because the state has strict contributory negligence rules. Under this rule, if you are even 1% responsible for the accident, you are not entitled to any compensation. This means that no matter how small your contribution to the accident may have been, you cannot receive compensation for your injuries or losses.

For example, imagine you were hit by another car, but you were going a little too fast at the time of the accident. If the court finds that you were 5% at fault while the other driver was 95% at fault, you still cannot recover damages from the other party even though they were primarily at fault. This all-or-nothing rule can make it extremely difficult for plaintiffs in North Carolina to successfully sue and receive compensation for their losses.