Hurt as a Vacationer in Virginia Beach? Do I want a Virginia Injury Attorney, or should I get One Back Home?

If you were hurt as a vacationer in Virginia Beach, you will be better off with a Virginia Beach personal injury attorney if you get hurt here.

Even if you’re from New York, you should find an attorney experienced at representing folks from out of town so they know some of the complications that are involved. The problem is that your family lawyer or friend back home in New York won’t be familiar with injury law even if they are an experienced personal injury lawyer.

A New York lawyer is not qualified to file a suit on their own in Virginia. In my 30 years of doing personal injury law in Virginia, I have found the injured person often gets their attorney back home in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or New York. Then that lawyer or the client has to hire me later when they realize that the New York attorney is going to need help and really is not allowed to file a lawsuit here in Virginia anyway without a Virginia license.

The law related to personal injury cases and insurance claims is very different in New York compared to Virginia. For example in New York they have a kind of coverage called PIP or personal injury protection which covers your medical bills under your own insurance policy up to certain limits if certain hoops are jumped through to make the claim.

In Virginia, you are typically on your own for your medical bills unless you were wise enough to have bought a thing called medical payments coverage which covers a limited amount of your medical bills under your own automobile policy. Most of the time it falls to the health insurance of a Virginian who gets hurt in a car accident if they are lucky enough to have health insurance.

Hurt as a Vacationer in Virginia Beach? Consider Hiring a Local Injury Lawyer

I am currently working on a very serious injury case. A family was down in Virginia Beach for a sporting event. The teenagers in the family had been regular high school competitors in their sport of choice. Lots of tournaments take place in Virginia Beach where people from all over the country come to compete in wrestling, softball, field hockey, and other sports. This family was in a rent-a-car when it was hit by a driver from Virginia Beach. Grievous injuries requiring surgery were needed for one of the children in the family.

In the circumstances where a person from out of state gets hurt in Virginia, there are all kinds of logistical challenges. As was true for the family in the situation I’m describing, their trip was of course ruined and the daughter in question was laid up in a Virginia hospital for some time. Now the family has to figure out how to get other family members back home and have somebody with the child who’s been hurt and has had to undergo an operation. Eventually, they had to figure out how to fly the patient back home to New York with hardware attached to the outside of the girl’s body in a way that made regular commercial flying impossible.

The rules in Virginia about how and when to file suit are also completely different than New York. Virginia has a relatively short time frame of two years in order to file a lawsuit or all claims are forever lost. That’s called the statute of limitations. Some states such as Tennessee have an even shorter period which is 1 year in that state. That really doesn’t give a person very much time to get healed up, find a lawyer and figure out what to do about their claim, especially in serious injury situations.

I was very pleased when the New York family’s mother called me to get my assistance to handle the case. I was aware of the different aspects of a serious claim like this involving a tourist from out of state I was able to take care of many of the challenges and reassure the family that they would all be taken care of properly.

If you get hurt out of state and the insurance company won’t be reasonable forcing you to file suit in Virginia then you probably have to come back to Virginia Beach or where the accident happened in order to give depositions.

Now you’ve got additional days missed from work, the cost of transportation added to the already scary and difficult process of giving deposition testimony to the insurance defense lawyer as part of a lawsuit. Again, because I have been down this road many times I was able to make this as convenient and as easy as I could for the family. Nonetheless, it does involve expenses and hassle and having an experienced attorney with the resources to make sure everything goes smoothly is really important.

Getting hurt in a car accident out of town is incredibly frightening. Not only has this awful event happened to you that was not your fault but in addition, you have all of the extra pressure of doing what needs to be done all while not being in your own home and in your own community.

As an attorney who’s practiced for 30 years in the Virginia Beach area, I am quite familiar with these challenges and would be glad to help answer any questions that you might have if you or a loved one was hurt while visiting the great resort city of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Cooper Hurley Injury Lawyers has a client meeting location in Virginia Beach and all of the other cities in Hampton Roads as well as on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. In the spring and summer, we see a major influx of tourists. If you were hurt as a vacationer in Virginia Beach or elsewhere, considering contacting our experienced accident injury attorneys at (757) 333-3333.