The Best Accident and Personal Injury Our personal injury practice has helped people in 30 of Illinois’ 102 counties to fight for their rights. While our home office is located in Rockford, Illinois we routinely are called upon to represent victims that have been injured due to the negligence of others and extend that protection to citizens in the DeKalb, Illinois metro area. With a variety of state highways and an interstate running through the county there are frequent motor vehicle collisions both in the county, and within DeKalb itself, that the services of a personal injury law firm are warranted.
If your injury stems from a car accident, the responding law enforcement agency will prepare a crash report based on Illinois Statute. If you obtain this crash report not only can we get a snap shot of what the first responding officer observed, but also obtain valuable information to initiate a claim against the driver who hurt you by seeing their listed insurance information. If you or a loved one were hurt in DeKalb or in DeKalb County, these are the two most likely agencies to have responded to your crash scene:
If you have been injured in a car accident in DeKalb, Illinois, or in a surrounding community, there are essentially two ways to recover compensation for your injury.
The “law and order” type path, where a suit is filed and a judge or jury ultimately rules on liability and/or damages at a contested trial. You would be present, and the insurance company would provide an attorney for the other involved party to your accident. Testimony would be taken on all sides, and then a decision would be rendered on your case. Certainly, some cases must go to trial; perhaps liability is questionable as to who caused the accident. However, in some cases with severe injuries and high monetary (money) damages, some insurance companies would rather pay for a civil defense firm to litigate the case to try to avoid what’s fairly owed to the victim of their driver’s bad act.
This leads us to option two, which is litigating your claim through the Illinois Car Accident Settlement Process, which will be described further on this page.
The car accident settlement process roughly flows in this order:
Illinois sets a time limit of two years to file a personal injury lawsuit in the state’s civil court system. In most cases, this two-year time limit, known as a “statute of limitations,” begins to run on the date of the accident. Sometimes, however, a statute of limitations might run from the date that you discovered you were injured, rather than the date of the event that injured you. This later date is known as a “discovery date.”
For injury claims against a city or county, you have one year to file a lawsuit. The time limit to sue the state is generally two years, but you must file a formal claim within one year in order to sue.
For an honest, free, and compassionate consultation about your DeKalb, Illinois personal injury case, feel free to call or text message us confidentially at (815) 964-8303 or contact us using the form on this page. Remember, our service is absolutely at no cost to you unless we earn a recovery on your behalf. Let our trusted professionals help you or your loved one navigate the legal side of your case and fight for your financial recovery, while you focus on your physical recovery.