You have the right to contact a Fort Wayne, IN, Lyft accident lawyer immediately following a severe accident. If you don’t act quickly, Lyft representatives may make bad-faith efforts to deny you access to loss-based damages. Insurance claims adjusters can similarly hide evidence of your losses to limit your right to recover.
Our Fort Wayne rideshare accident lawyers make it easier for you to stay one step ahead of the people who want to delay your recovery. Your first case consultation with our team comes free of charge and lets you get to know a team with over 100 years of legal experience.
Are you ready to work with a team that prioritizes Hoosiers’ best interests? You can contact Vaughan & Vaughan today.
Who’s to Blame for a Lyft Accident?
Fort Wayne car accident lawyers can help you assign blame for a Lyft accident by assessing the specific circumstances that led to your accident. Once you know who you can hold responsible for your accident, you can more effectively ask for the financial compensation you need to get back on your feet.
What Does the Evidence Say?
Indiana established its burden of proof so that accident victims would have to prove that someone else’s negligence caused their accident. That burden requires you to gather enough evidence to reasonably suggest that someone else’s negligence put you in harm’s way.
Proving that someone violated the duty of care they owed you isn’t the same as proving that someone committed a crime on the road. In fact, the bar for entry is lower for civil cases than it is for criminal cases. Your Fort Wayne personal injury lawyer can work with investigators to bring in a wide range of data, including the following:
- Video footage of your crash
- Photos from before and after the accident
- Statements from witnesses
- Electronic data
- Lyft’s app data
- Expert witness statements
- Physical debris and environmental damage
We can use this data to craft the narrative of negligence that led to your accident. When the time comes to submit your claim, we can point to specific pieces of evidence to defend our assertions of negligence and fault.
What Do the Contracts Say?
While evidence establishes the foundation of your case, you also have to consider what role contracts may play in your effort to assign liability for your losses. Lyft prefers to work with independent contractors because the law doesn’t view contractors as employees.
Instead, contractors are responsible for their own insurance and, subsequently, the legal fallout of their accidents. If Lyft argues that the person responsible for your accident wasn’t using its app at the time of a crash or otherwise doesn’t qualify for its on-the-clock coverage, you can sue that individual for loss-based damages.
However, there are some instances wherein Lyft will send employees out on the road. In other cases, a Lyft contractor may be on the clock, with passengers in the car, and under the care of Lyft’s insurance policy. In these cases, you may have the right to file a request for damages against Lyft.
Do You Have to File a Personal Injury Claim With a Fort Wayne Lyft Accident Lawyer?
You’re not obligated to pursue a personal injury claim after a rideshare accident. Rather, you can file an insurance claim with the provider responsible for your liable party. However, insurance claims only cover your economic losses – and even then, most insurance claims adjusters will go to extreme lengths to deny your request.
If you don’t get the financial support you need from an insurance provider, a personal injury claim can make up for your losses. Personal injury claims allow you to ask for damages based on your economic and non-economic losses, thereby increasing the value of the settlement you walk away with after winning a case.
However, if you want to file a rideshare accident claim, you need to do so before your case’s statute of limitations expires. Indiana’s personal injury statute of limitations gives you no more than two years to build a case against Lyft or its affiliates.
Do You Have to Take a Lyft Accident Case to Civil Court?
Even if you file a personal injury claim against a bad actor, you don’t have to go to court to get the compensation you need to recover. Filing a personal injury claim can instead allow you to arrange private settlement negotiations with a bad actor.
We recommend having a Fort Wayne Lyft accident attorney with you as negotiations progress. While negotiations can come to a conclusion faster than a rideshare accident trial, liable parties can try to minimize your losses or intimidate you out of asking for the support you deserve.
If you have an attorney on your side, you can prevent liable parties from using bad-faith tactics to reduce your final settlement. We can also take your case to trial if a liable party abuses the time you set aside to negotiate for support.
Let Vaughan & Vaughan Advocate for Your Right to Accident Damages
You deserve to work with an attorney who will advocate for your best interests following a serious accident. Fortunately, Vaughan & Vaughan has over 100 years of experience serving Hoosiers in need. We don’t let corporations like Lyft get away with bad faith tactics that might otherwise minimize your right to financially recover from a rideshare accident.
If you’re ready to take legal action against bad actors, inattentive drivers, or corporations like Lyft, consider scheduling a free case evaluation with our Lyft accident attorneys in Fort Wayne, IN. Your first case consultation comes free of charge.