If you’ve been injured in a car accident, you might have a lot of questions. “How long will it take for me to heal?” “How much will the doctor’s visits cost?” “Should I file a car accident lawsuit?”
You might worry about filing a car accident lawsuit. This is especially true if you don’t know a lot about courts or legal claims. Don’t worry. This post will give an overview of how personal injury cases work and explain the 13 steps in an Alabama car accident case.
Before we begin, remember: Every car crash case is unique. So every step listed here won’t happen in every case. Also, some steps might be repeated in some cases or happen in a different order. But generally, these are the steps in an Alabama car accident case.
Before the case starts: what to do at the accident scene
Before we get into the steps, remember that there are certain things you should do after a car accident. These include:
- Getting the other driver’s contact info,
- Getting the names of any witnesses,
- Taking pictures of the accident scene, and
- Taking pictures of your accident injuries.
Do these things immediately after the car accident or as soon as you are able. Following this advice will help your injury claim and make it easier for your lawyer to build your case.
Step 1: Hire an Alabama car accident lawyer
After you gather your evidence, you should contact a lawyer as soon as you can. You may think you have time, but there are some good reasons why you shouldn’t wait.
First, after the accident, insurance adjusters will contact you. Their goal is to get information that will help them deny insurance claims. They will use anything you say as a reason to deny your claim. But an experienced lawyer can keep you from saying something that will hurt your insurance claim or your lawsuit.
Second, all personal injury cases have to be filed by a certain deadline. (Lawyers call these “statutes of limitation.”) In Alabama, the general deadline for a car accident injury claim is two years from the date of the crash, under Alabama Code § 6-2-38(l). A wrongful death case also has a two-year deadline, but it runs from the date of death rather than the date of the crash, under Alabama Code § 6-5-410(d).
A few situations carry much shorter deadlines, and those are the ones that catch people out:
- Claims against a city: Alabama Code § 11-47-23 requires a claim for damages to be presented to the municipality within six months, and Alabama Code § 11-47-192 requires it to be a sworn statement filed with the city clerk. Counties have their own presentment rules. If a city vehicle, a city employee, or a poorly maintained public road was involved, six months can pass before you’ve finished treatment.
- The death of a child: Under Alabama Code § 6-5-391, a parent has the first right to file and six months to do it. After that window, the child’s personal representative can still file within the two years.
Seeing a lawyer early is how you find out which deadline actually applies to you.
Step 2: The investigation
After you hire a lawyer, they will get right to work. The first thing they will do is investigate your accident. They will gather information about the circumstances of your accident, your injuries, your medical bills, any lost wages, and much more. You’ll help by giving your lawyer the documents they need and answering any questions.
This stage usually runs alongside your medical treatment, because the full value of a claim isn’t clear until doctors know how far you’re going to recover. That’s the main reason a case can sit in this phase for months without anything appearing to happen.
Step 3: The demand
The investigation will help your lawyer decide how much your case is worth. Once that happens, the lawyer will send a demand to the other driver’s team. The demand is a request for money that will compensate you for your injuries. The other driver can pay the settlement demand, make a counteroffer, or reject it completely. Your lawyer will negotiate with the other side to try to get a fair settlement.
Most Alabama car accident claims end here, without a lawsuit ever being filed. Our post on how Alabama car accident settlements work covers this part in more detail.
Step 4: Deciding whether to file a lawsuit
This is probably one of the trickiest steps in an Alabama car accident case. Your attorney will ask you lots of questions to help you make a decision. This list of questions might include things like:
- How long will a car accident lawsuit take?
- How much is my car accident case worth?
- How does the current settlement offer compare to how much my case is worth?
- Does everyone agree about who caused the accident and why?
- Is the insurance company claiming you were partly at fault?
- Is the deadline to file the case close or far away?
- Is there a wrongful death claim?
That fault question matters more in Alabama than almost anywhere else. Alabama still follows pure contributory negligence, which means that if the other side establishes you were even one percent at fault for the crash, you can be barred from recovering anything. Insurers know it and raise it constantly. If fault is genuinely in dispute, that changes both what a settlement is worth and how risky a trial would be. Our guide to contributory negligence in Alabama explains how it works.
Answering these questions will help you decide whether filing a lawsuit is right for you.
Step 5: Filing a lawsuit
If you tell your lawyer that you’re ready to file, they will draft a special legal document called a complaint. The complaint explains how you (the plaintiff) were injured and why you believe that the other driver (the defendant) was responsible for your injuries. The complaint will also include a demand for damages. These damages are the money needed to cover the physical, financial, and emotional losses caused by the accident.
Most Alabama car accident lawsuits are filed in circuit court. Which county depends on where the crash happened and where the defendant lives, so your lawyer will confirm the right venue before filing.
Step 6: The other side answers
After you file your complaint, the defendant usually replies with a document called an answer. The defendant’s answer will admit or deny the facts in the complaint. The defendant can also use the answer to bring claims against you or other parties in the case. (For example, in a trucking accident case, there might be multiple defendants. If one of the trucking companies thinks another is more responsible, they might bring a claim against them.)
The answer is also where the defendant raises its defenses, including contributory negligence. Seeing it in writing can be jarring, but it’s routine, not a sign your case is in trouble.
Step 7: Discovery
Lawyers need information to build cases. They get this information during a process called discovery.
During discovery, the plaintiff, the defendant, and their witnesses will answer questions under oath. The lawyers will use these answers to determine how well the facts support their case.
Discovery is usually the longest stretch of a lawsuit. Written questions, document requests, and depositions all take time to schedule and complete, and the court sets the outer limits with a scheduling order.
Step 8: Motions
Technically, motions can be filed at any time during a personal injury lawsuit. But generally, lawyers file most of their motions after discovery.
The big one at this stage is a motion for summary judgment. If the defendant believes the discovery record shows there is nothing for a jury to decide, they will ask the court to rule in their favor without a trial. That is different from a motion to dismiss, which attacks the complaint itself and comes early in the case, before discovery.
It may take the court a while to rule, so remember to be patient. Your lawyer will keep you updated.
Step 9: Negotiations and mediation
Like motions, negotiations can happen at any point in a personal injury case. But negotiations usually resume after discovery. Discovery reveals the strength of the other side’s case. With this new information, the parties will resume negotiations with a different perspective. The court’s decision on a motion can also spark a new round of negotiations.
Many Alabama cases also go through mediation before trial, sometimes because the parties agree to it and sometimes because the court orders it. A mediator is a neutral third party who doesn’t decide anything. They move between the two sides and look for a number both can live with. Mediation is confidential, and nothing you say there can be used against you if the case doesn’t settle. A large share of cases that reach this stage resolve at or shortly after mediation.
Step 10: Trial preparations
Trial preparation is one of the most crucial steps in an Alabama car accident case. Your lawyer will help you and any other witnesses prepare for court. Your lawyer won’t tell you what to say, but they will let you know the types of questions you should expect. They will also answer questions about what to wear, how to behave, where to park, and much more.
Step 11: The trial
A typical personal injury trial usually includes the following stages:
- Jury selection: The court will bring in a group of potential jurors. Each side’s lawyer will question them, and both sides can ask the judge to strike jurors for various reasons. A civil jury in Alabama circuit court is typically 12 people. The jurors decide questions of fact (“Was the light red or green?”) and the judge decides legal questions.
- Opening statements: Each side takes a few moments to give a short speech to the jury explaining their side of what happened during the crash.
- Plaintiff’s case: Your lawyer will present evidence that shows you were injured and that the defendant caused your injuries. This evidence might be witnesses, documents, pictures, and anything else that helps your case.
- Defendant’s case: The other driver’s lawyer will call their witnesses to explain why they shouldn’t be held responsible for the accident.
- Closing arguments: Each side speaks to the jury a final time to tell them how they should interpret the evidence and testimony.
- Jury instructions and deliberation: The judge will tell the jury about the legal rules that apply in the case. The jurors must follow them as they make their decision. The judge will then direct the jury to a private room to consider the facts and reach a verdict.
Step 12: The verdict
The jury will decide who was responsible for the accident and how much the plaintiff should get in damages.
In some cases, a court will split those two questions and have the jury decide responsibility first and damages afterward. That is called bifurcation, and it happens only when the court orders it. It isn’t the standard way a case is tried, in trucking cases or any other kind.
Step 13: Appeals
There are several different types of courts. A trial court is at the lowest level. People who disagree with a trial judge’s decision or a jury’s verdict can ask a higher court to overturn the decision. This process, called an appeal, can take years. Fortunately, it is very difficult to overturn a jury’s verdict.
How long does all of this take?
There’s no single answer, and anyone who gives you one this early is guessing. What we can tell you is what drives the timeline:
- Your medical treatment: A claim usually isn’t ready to value until your doctors know how far you’ll recover, so serious injuries push everything else back.
- Whether fault is disputed: A clear rear-end crash moves faster than one where the insurer is arguing you contributed to it.
- Whether a lawsuit gets filed: Claims that settle at the demand stage finish far sooner than cases that go through discovery and trial.
- The court’s calendar: Scheduling orders, motion rulings, and trial dates are set by the court, not by the parties.
Ask your lawyer for a realistic range for your specific case, and ask again as the case develops.
One more thing: what you actually take home
The verdict or settlement figure is not the amount that reaches you. Attorney fees, case expenses like filing fees and expert costs, and any liens come out of the recovery first.
Liens are the part most people don’t see coming. Your health insurer, your medical providers, or a program like Medicaid or Medicare may all have a right to be repaid out of your settlement. Getting those balances reduced is real work, and it changes your net recovery as much as the headline number does. It’s a fair question to ask a lawyer before you hire them: what do you do about liens?
Want to know more about the steps in an Alabama car accident case?
Alabama personal injury lawsuits can be complicated. Hopefully, this article has helped you understand a bit more about how things work in car accident cases. If you have more questions about the steps in an Alabama car accident case, please don’t hesitate to contact Collins Law, LLC. Our firm handles injuries from trucking accidents, car accidents, and many other types of collisions. Call us at 205-588-1411 or use our website’s online scheduling tool. We’re ready to help you!
