Louisiana Rideshare Accident Lawyer

The team at the Murphy Law Firm offers comprehensive legal counsel for all types of rideshare accident claims for clients in the state. Based in Baton Rouge, our team can provide the legal representation you need to help you recover from a rideshare accident, guiding you through the complex insurance-related proceedings you are likely to face in the aftermath of this type of vehicle accident.

While rideshare accidents happen the same ways that all other accidents occur, resolving these cases is often more challenging due to the way rideshare companies’ insurance policies work after these accidents. You may need to file more than one insurance claim after a rideshare accident, and it is possible to have alternative avenues of legal recourse available to you. It’s also possible to encounter unexpected legal challenges you will not be able to resolve alone.

Louisiana enforces the fault rule for all vehicle accidents, meaning the party at fault for causing an accident absorbs liability for the resulting damages. After a rideshare accident, the first thing you will need to do is determine liability for the incident. If you were riding as a passenger in a rideshare, it is possible for liability to fall on your driver or the driver of another vehicle. You will also need to prove fault if you were driving your own vehicle when you were hit.

Some of the most commonly cited causes of rideshare accidents in the state include various forms of driver negligence, such as distracted driving, speeding, driving too fast for conditions, and moving violations, such as illegal turns or failure to yield the right-of-way. An experienced Louisiana rideshare accident lawyer can help you prove exactly how the accident happened by gathering various types of evidence to support your case.

In any vehicle accident case, it is possible for the issue of comparative fault to arise if the facts of the case show that more than one party shares liability for the damages cited in the claim. Under the state’s pure comparative fault rule, each liable party will have a fault percentage assigned to indicate their respective levels of liability for the damages cited in the claim.

If you were riding as a rideshare passenger, it is highly unlikely for you to be assigned any amount of fault unless you somehow interfered with the driver’s ability to operate their vehicle safely. If you were driving your own vehicle when you were hit by a rideshare driver, the facts may show that your negligence contributed to causing the collision, and this will ultimately reduce your compensation by a proportionate amount.

Under certain circumstances, insurance may not fully cover a victim’s damages after a rideshare accident. If this applies to your case, you will need to file a personal injury suit to recover your damages. The objective of a personal injury claim is for the injured victim to prove the full extent of the harm they suffered and to hold the liable party accountable for these damages. The intention of the claim is for the plaintiff to be made as whole as possible.

The plaintiff in a personal injury suit has one year from the date of their accident to file their claim against the defendant who injured them. They must firmly prove liability for their damages, and they must also establish the causation between their claimed damages and the defendant’s actions. This means their claimed losses must have solely resulted from the defendant’s actions and not from any other cause.

The plaintiff in a personal injury suit may seek compensation for any economic damages they suffered because of the accident, which can include various financial losses that can be proven with the appropriate documentation. The economic damages a plaintiff may be able to claim from a defendant may include:

• Property losses. If you cannot recover vehicle repair costs or other property losses from insurance, these losses can be cited as economic damages in your personal injury suit.
• Medical expenses. Car accidents can easily cause many severe injuries. The plaintiff in a personal injury case for a rideshare accident has the right to claim compensation for all immediate and future medical expenses they face because of the accident the defendant caused. Your attorney can help you accurately calculate these losses by examining your medical reports.

Ultimately, a rideshare accident case is likely to be far more complex and more challenging to resolve than a standard personal injury case. The average claimant is unlikely to secure a favorable result without the help of an experienced attorney, and it is vital for them to start working on their case right away to ensure they can meet the statute of limitations.

Your insurance claim filing process could be the most challenging aspect of recovering compensation for your rideshare accident. It is prudent to expect an insurance carrier to fight your claim, as these companies will almost always look for all the ways they can find to deny claims or justify the lowest possible settlement offers. Your attorney can be an invaluable asset for navigating this process to a fair result.

Rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft are required to have auto insurance, but this insurance works very differently from a standard individual auto insurance policy. Every rideshare driver must have their own personal insurance that will apply in various situations, but a rideshare company’s policy will apply under certain conditions. Your Louisiana rideshare accident lawyer can help you make sense of your insurance claim filing options after your accident.

If a rideshare driver is at fault for an accident, their personal auto insurance policy will be used first to compensate the victim’s damages. The rideshare company’s policy would then apply in different ways depending on the circumstances of the accident. If the rideshare driver is not logged into their driver app and they are using their vehicle for personal reasons, the rideshare company’s insurance will not apply if they cause an accident.

The first level of the rideshare company’s insurance policy takes effect once the driver has logged into their driver app and marked themselves as available for a ride request.

At this point, if they cause an accident, their personal insurance may first go toward paying for the resulting damages, and then the rideshare company’s policy will pay for any outstanding losses up to the limit of $50,000 for bodily injury to a single person, up to $100,000 for injuries to multiple persons in a single accident, and up to $25,000 to cover property damage.