When someone else’s negligence puts you in the hospital, the path to recovery often runs straight into an insurance company focused on protecting its own profits. At Schefman & Associates, our personal injury lawyers in Oakland County help you understand what your claim is worth before you sign anything.
Injury Cases Our Firm Takes On
We represent clients injured in car accidents, including drunk driving and hit-and-run accidents. However, negligence takes many shapes, and our firm handles claims tied to the crashes and mistakes that injure people across Oakland County:
- Motorcycle accidents
- Truck accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Commercial vehicle accidents
- Uber and Lyft accidents
- No-fault insurance claims
- Medical malpractice
- Wrongful death
Many serious crashes occur along Oakland County’s busiest roadways, from Woodward Avenue through Royal Oak and Birmingham to the interchanges along Interstate 696. No matter where the collision happens, the aftermath often follows the same pattern: medical treatment, missed income, and a dispute over who is responsible for the costs.
What Compensation Is Available for Personal Injury Accident Victims?
What you can recover depends on how deeply the injury reached into your life, and Michigan law allows several types of damages. Economic damages encompass those with receipts and pay stubs behind them and are usually straightforward to prove. Non-economic damages, like the strain an injury puts on your relationships and routines, take more skill to document:
- Medical expenses
- Future treatment costs
- Lost income
- Reduced earning capacity
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of life’s enjoyment
Serious injuries also involve future costs that are easy to underestimate, so our firm works with medical and financial professionals to project what full recovery will require.
In motor vehicle cases, your own insurer pays medical bills, attendant care, household service reimbursements, and wage loss through no-fault personal injury protection benefits, regardless of fault. Pain and suffering comes from a separate claim against the at-fault driver and requires meeting the statutory threshold of serious impairment of body function under MCL 500.3135.
If the at-fault driver has no insurance, or that coverage is not sufficient for the nature of your injuries, your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage may be tapped, though the same threshold applies. For wage loss in excess of the no-fault statutory maximum, the threshold does not apply. No-fault claims run on a shorter clock: the insurer must be placed on notice within one year of the collision, and suit must be filed within one year from the date any benefit was incurred.
What Is Comparative Negligence in Michigan?
Being partly to blame does not shut the door on a claim in Michigan. Under the state’s comparative fault rule, MCL 600.2959, a court trims your damages by your share of the fault. You can still recover as long as your share is not more than 50%, but cross that line and the law denies any payment for pain and suffering.
A small shift in that fault split can erase much of an award, so in suits filed at the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court in Pontiac, insurers push hard to pin extra blame on injured people.
Why Trust Schefman & Associates to Fight for What’s Fair?
Schefman & Associates pairs more than 60 years of collective experience with a record of recovering tens of millions for injury victims. Your attorney will be at the initial interview and direct the case from then on, and the firm advances every cost of building your case.
Schedule a Free Consultation With Our Personal Injury Lawyers in Oakland County
A serious injury can leave you wondering whether justice is even affordable. Schefman & Associates works on a contingency basis, so there are no fees up front and nothing owed unless we recover compensation for you.
A personal injury lawyer on our team can review your situation at no cost and without any pressure or obligation. Call (248) 594-2600 or contact us online to arrange a free consultation.