IN VIRGINIA, ONE ADMISSION
CAN FINISH A CLAIM
Most states split the fault and shrink the recovery to match. Virginia does not. The rule here is contributory negligence in its oldest form, and it works as a bar rather than a discount: if an insurer can put any share of the blame on you, the claim pays nothing.
That one rule governs everything about a Virginia Beach injury claim. It explains why the adjuster is pleasant. It explains why a recorded statement is wanted early, while you are still apologizing by reflex. And it explains why the first call you make carries more weight here than it would in most states.
Virginia Beach records more than 2,600 crash injuries in a year, before you count falls, premises claims and everything else that arrives in this practice. We have represented 252 injured people in this city across the last two — handled out of two offices inside it.
Where a claim does not settle, it is filed in the Virginia Beach General District Court when the damages are modest and the Circuit Court when they are not. That choice determines the timeline, the discovery available to you, and how much the other side will pay to avoid a jury. We have filed in both for decades.
WHERE WE EARN OUR KEEP
TWO YEARS SOUNDS LIKE
PLENTY OF TIME
Virginia allows two years from the date of injury to bring a claim, and that deadline is indifferent to whether you were still under treatment or still waiting on an adjuster. A wrongful death claim carries the same two-year window, counted from the date of death. Let it pass and the claim ends, however strong it was.
Two years feels ample until you watch it being spent. Treatment has to progress far enough for a physician to say what will not improve. Records have to come in from every provider who saw you — which takes longer in this city, where those providers are often spread across a base, a civilian hospital and a specialist somewhere else entirely. And an insurer under no time pressure will use all of it, then open with a figure that looks fair beside the bills you have already settled and means nothing beside the ones still to come.
Not every injury case begins with a collision. Falls on another party’s property, unsafe premises, dog bites, defective goods, and injuries inside a business that left a known hazard in place all end up here. If somebody else’s negligence caused it, the same laws and the same time affordance remain — and the same first call to Decker Law is the right one.
IN VIRGINIA BEACH
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252
injury clients represented in Virginia Beach in the last two years
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16,000+
injury clients represented since 1995
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2
offices in the city, on Haygood Road and in Kempsville
BEFORE THE ADJUSTER TAKES YOUR STATEMENT
Speak to us. The conversation costs nothing, finding out where you stand costs nothing, and a single sentence to an insurer can undo a claim that was otherwise worth bringing. 757-622-3317 — any hour.