After the crash or the fall, and what the insurer does next
A collision on the Jones Falls Expressway, a fall on an icy sidewalk in Mount Vernon, a dog bite in a Baltimore County yard: the injury arrives first and the paperwork arrives a day later. Cooper & Tuerk, LLP handles personal injury for people hurt in an automobile accident, or otherwise, through the negligence of another. The office at 201 North Charles Street takes calls from Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County, and the first questions are plain ones: what happened, and what has anyone said to you since.
Within days an adjuster for the other driver's insurer usually calls, often friendly, often asking for a recorded statement. You can talk to an attorney before you give one, and what you say while you are still in pain or on medication can be read back to you later. Keep the claim number, photographs of the scene and the vehicles, and every medical paper you are handed. Do not sign a release or cash a check until you understand what it closes off. Strict deadlines apply to injury claims in Maryland, so call promptly.
Carl E. Tuerk, Jr. practised personal injury and products liability in Baltimore from 1972, and the practice of W. Timothy Sutton included personal injury as well. The firm's working rule has not changed since the founding in 1965: you deal directly with an attorney, not with a paralegal, whether you come to Suite 2300 in person or talk by telephone about what happened and what comes next.
Proving negligence: the report, the records and the witnesses
A personal injury claim rests on four things shown in order: the other party owed you a duty of care, breached it, that breach caused your injury, and the injury cost you something real. Maryland still applies contributory negligence, which means the insurer will look hard for any share of fault it can place on you. How the facts are gathered and presented in the first weeks therefore matters a great deal, long before anyone sees a courtroom.
The evidence is usually ordinary and perishable. The police crash report from the Baltimore City or Baltimore County department, the names and numbers of anyone who watched it happen, photographs taken before the cars were moved, and the medical record that ties the injury to the event. Business surveillance video is often overwritten within days. A site visit to the intersection or the stairwell, with the light and the angle in mind, can tell a story that a written report leaves out.
If the claim has to be filed, it goes to the Circuit Court for Baltimore City or for Baltimore County, or to the District Court of Maryland, depending on the size of the claim. Pleadings, written questions and sworn depositions follow. The firm explains each of those steps before it happens, in the office at Suite 2300 or by phone at (410) 539-0300.
Medical bills, lost wages and when to settle
Damages are documented, not guessed. That means treatment records and bills from every provider, the notes that show how long you were out of work, pay stubs and employer letters that show what you lost, and a plain account of how the injury changed your days. Gaps matter. A month with no treatment can be read by the other side as a month with no pain, so the firm looks at the whole timeline with you and asks about anything that does not add up.
Most claims end by agreement. The usual path is a written demand to the insurer, a period of negotiation, and sometimes mediation, which the firm also handles and for which it has had a court-certified mediator on its team. Whether to accept an offer is your decision. The firm's part is to lay out what the offer covers, what it leaves out, and what a trial would involve, so the choice is made with the facts in front of you.
Health insurers and other payers can claim reimbursement from a settlement, so the figures on the page are not always the figures that reach your hands. That is worth understanding before you agree to anything, and the firm goes through it with you line by line. The office serves injured people across Baltimore, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County, and you can call (410) 539-0300 to arrange a time to talk.
