If you are a victim of a personal injury, you are eligible to file a lawsuit in the court to seek compensation for your damages. In Delaware, a person needs to consider certain laws before filing a personal injury claim. A personal injury can come in many forms:
- A physical injury, illness, or disease
- Psychological injury
- Damage to the property
Statute of Limitations
The statute of limitations is the time frame in which the injured person can file a claim in the civil court. This time starts right from the day when the injury is happened. In Delaware, the statute of limitation time is set to TWO YEARS.
Motor Insurance Policies in Delaware
Delaware is known as an “at-fault” insurance state. This means that if you are injured in a motor vehicle accident, you may seek compensation from the insurance company of the other driver who was at fault in causing the accident. The laws of Delaware provide several options to the injured victim of a personal injury case. He or she can ask for compensation from his or her own insurer or from the driver who is at fault.
Shared Fault Rules for Injury Cases in Delaware
Delaware is a state that follows a modified comparative fault law in personal injury cases where the injured party shares part of the fault. With this law, if the injured party is partially responsible for causing the accident, the amount of compensation to which he or she could possibly be eligible, will be reduced by the percentage of his or her own fault. However, under the modified comparative fault, if the injured party is found to 50 percent or more at fault in an accident, he or she is barred from recovering any damages. So let’s take an example to know how this rule works in real practice does.
Suppose a driver is speeding and he gets hit by a truck that drives through a red light signal. In court, it was found that since the driver was drive over the speed limit he shared a small amount of fault in accident. As per Delaware’s comparative fault law, the amount of compensation he receives gets reduced by the amount of fault he shares. For instance in this case, his compensation amount of $ 10,000 gets reduced to $ 8,000 as he shared 20 percent of the fault.
Caps on damages in personal injury case
Some states in the country place caps of damages for personal injury cases that limit the amount of compensation that an injured party can receive in a personal injury case. Unlike other states, Delaware is one of the few states that do not have any caps on damages in personal injury cases. The injured can seek compensation for economic and non-economic damages in court without any statutory limit.
