Macomb County Injury Lawyer Explains Auto Accident Cases in Michigan

Hi. My name is Bob Garvey. I’m an attorney with Thomas, Garvey & McKenna. We are a firm of three lawyers, Dan Beck, myself, and Jim McKenna. All of us limit our practice to personal injury litigation which includes the topic that you’ve chosen which is automobile accidents. Automobile negligence law in the state of Michigan is fairly complicated because we have no fault. It’s called no fault. So, I’m going to make an extremely complicated topic extremely simple and invite you to call us or to come in so that we can peg the details of your case with the Michigan law and give you answers that are will totally fit your case.

But just in general, that the average person that gets into an automobile accident in Michigan who is injured has two claims. They generally, not always but generally would go to their own insurance company. Let’s say I am insured with AAA, State Farm, Auto Owners, and I get into an auto accident. It doesn’t matter who is at fault. I could be speeding 90 miles an hour in a 40 mile an hour zone and hit a tree. I’m entitled to three benefits from my own insurance company. So even though I’m at fault, I’m entitled to medical benefits for the rest of my life. In a very serious injury case, that’s a godsend, medical benefits for the rest of your life. If you need someone, even a family member to take care of you at home, the insurance company has to pay them a market rate to do that.

So many of our clients who have had really, really serious injuries such as brain injuries or paralysis that has been literally a godsend to them. For the rest of their lives they don’t have to worry about anything.

The second benefit is wage loss. That’s paid for up to three years, 85 percent of your gross weekly wage. It is non-taxable to you, but it is capped. I’m not going to get into that now but the cap changes every year.

The third benefit is household services. So if you’re injured in an accident and you would normally cut the grass, clean the gutters, cook, do laundry and you can’t do that, your own insurance company without regard to fault, will pay you up to $20 a day for up to three years. It’s capped at three years. So that’s you’re first case.

The second case that you have does depend on proving fault. So if another driver is at fault; you are injured and you’ve got your no-fault benefits from your own carrier, you can now sue the at fault driver for what’s called non-economic damages. So that’s pain and suffering, mental distress. In a wrongful death case, it would be your loss of society and companionship of a loved one. Those are all non-economic damages. They are not medical, they are not wage loss, and they are not services. In addition to those non-economic damages, if you are involved in an accident where it’s someone else’s fault and you sue, you can get excess wage loss.

Remember I said, under no-fault, from your own carrier, you will only get the first three years. The case against the at-fault driver, you can get any other economic damages that you lost. So wage loss in excess of three years, your medical bills are already taken care of so that’s not part of that lawsuit. You can also receive household services beyond the three years or if it costs you more than $20 a day.

So to make you whole, which is our job, following an auto accident, you probably have two claims; one against your own carrier for medical wage loss, services, the economic damages and you have a separate claim if someone else is at fault and you were seriously injured. That’s called a third party lawsuit and we can help you with that as well.

Like I said, all three of us are available to help you with that. We have had a lot of success if you look into the verdicts and settlements, you could see the type of recoveries we have had either by going to a jury or by negotiating with insurance companies. We believe that by going to jury every once in a while and proving ourselves you benefit by better settlement because they respect us and they think twice about lowballing us in terms of the value of your case.

So, thank you for visiting this section of the website. I know it was a very brief discussion of a very complicated topic and whether you have a serious injury or not a serious injury, we’re more than happy to spend the time with you either by phone or in person. So we look forward to seeing you. Thank you.