According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, roughly 95% of personal injury cases, including most car accident claims, settle before reaching trial. Only about 3% to 5% proceed all the way to a jury verdict.
Generally, you can sue for a car accident. But before making a hasty decision, you must first understand the facts of your case. It’s important to understand the differences between an insurance claim and a lawsuit to figure out what option is better before deciding how to proceed.
Let’s discuss the steps one has to take if they plan on taking legal action following a car accident.
Claims and Lawsuits Are Two Different Things
Most car collisions get handled through an insurance claim, rather than turning into a lawsuit. The process of an insurance claim starts with you, or your attorney, letting the at-fault driver’s insurance know about the accident.
An insurance adjuster looks things over and weighs liability. If the process goes reasonably smoothly, a settlement gets talked through and paid out without the case ever seeing a courtroom.
Starting with an insurance claim first does not block your right to sue later if the claim does not get resolved in a fair way. What actually affects this right is your state’s statute of limitations, a fixed deadline for filing a lawsuit. This time restriction keeps moving whether or not the insurance claim is still going on.
Letting a claim linger, while not tracking the applicable statute of limitation for your case, is a frequent and avoidable error.
When a Lawsuit Actually Becomes Necessary
A lawsuit tends to become the right move when the insurance side of things breaks down in one of a few predictable ways. One instance is when the insurer counters by denying fault, claiming that their driver wasn’t responsible or that you share more blame than you believe.
A lawsuit may also commence when the insurer proposes a settlement that does not adequately cover the real medical bills, lost wages, and other harms tied to the crash. Severe injuries—such as broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, spinal damage, or ongoing disability—frequently arise in commercial collisions, where truck accidents are deadlier then a car accident due to vehicle mass and impact forces. These catastrophic losses often warrant moving beyond an initial claim to file a formal lawsuit.
A lawsuit may also commence when the insurer proposes a settlement that does not adequately cover the real medical bills, lost wages, and other harms tied to the crash. Injuries such as broken bones, traumatic brain injuries, spinal damage, or ongoing disability may warrant the filing of a lawsuit.
There’s also a category of damages that insurance claims usually do not even touch. Punitive damages, which are intended to punish unusually reckless behavior like drunk driving, often require a lawsuit and a court’s involvement rather than a negotiated settlement. The same pattern frequently applies to all pain and suffering damages, especially when the insurer is deliberately lowballing that part since it’s harder to calculate an exact amount than medical costs.
What the Lawsuit Process Actually Looks Like
A lawsuit filing begins with a formal petition put in court, and it lays out what happened, who’s responsible, and what payback is being requested. After that, the other side is formally informed of the suit and is given time to respond.
Then the discovery phase comes next. This step is typically the longest part of the process. During discovery, both sides trade evidence, filings and records, medical documents, and expert assessments. Sometimes, there are depositions where witnesses, or even the parties themselves, get questioned.
Most cases may look too difficult to reach a settlement at the beginning. But once discovery is complete, each party will have a fuller and more defensible view of the event. If the case does not settle, it moves forward to trial, where a judge or a jury decides the outcome.
Why Fault Percentage Matters More Than People Expect
Fault is one of the main factors that determine how the case will proceed. Finding out the percentage of fault of each party will influence how much compensation is settled. In fact, fault affects the case in every stage, not just at trial.
Many states let injured people seek compensation even when they share some blame, but the exact way the process plays out differs a lot. California, for instance, uses a pure comparative negligence setup. In this case, for example, if a driver is labeled 90% responsible, they still can recover from the party that was found 10% responsible. The only catch is that a judge trims the final settlement or award by the same percentage of fault he or she determines.
That detail is very important. It means a case is not automatically over just because you had some responsibility for what happened. It also means insurers have a strong push to claim you bear more fault than you really do, since each extra percentage point they tie to you directly lowers what they have to pay.
Why Legal Guidance Matters Before Deciding
Whether a particular situation warrants an insurance claim, a lawsuit, or some mix of both, is not always clear from the outside. The choice between these options can affect how much money you can realistically recover. For example, someone dealing with a serious car accident in Southern California really benefits from talking to Pasadena car accident lawyer, whose firm represents clients involved in traffic accidents and other transportation-related cases.
Going to court after a car accident is not the usual default track, and often it isn’t even necessary. Still, understanding when going to court is the correct path and what genuinely changes once a lawsuit is filed makes the choice less intimidating, especially when that move matters.
