If your parent has been diagnosed with dementia, they will have to stop driving at some point. If your parent was driving their car and they caused an accident that resulted in damage to vehicles and/or bodily injury to the other drivers involved in the accident, you have to be sure you take the right steps to protect your parent. The best way to do this is to hire a personal injury attorney or an auto accident attorney. Below are three ways this attorney can help you, so you can get started.
Talk with the Doctor
The personal injury attorney will contact your parent's doctor to learn more about their dementia problem. For example, they will ask the doctor what stage of dementia your parent is in and ask the doctor if they ever told your parent that they could no longer drive. If the doctor did tell your parent not to drive, then this will greatly affect the case. If the other driver finds out this information, they would then likely sue your parent.
If your parent is at the beginning stages of dementia and still able to drive, the attorney will ask the doctor for a statement stating this fact. This will be needed if the case goes to court, and if the other driver hires an attorney, this attorney may also want to see this statement.
Talk with Police Officers
The attorney will talk with the police officers that came to the scene and ask the officers for a copy of the police report. This will show them exactly how the accident happened. The police officers may be interviewed so the attorney can get their view of the accident. The police officers can explain the wreck to the attorney so they can have a better understanding of what happened.
After doing some investigation, the attorney may find out the cause of the accident was not only your parent's fault. If this is the case, the police officers should help the attorney determine this.
Talk with Insurance Company
Once the personal injury attorney is finished talking with your parent's doctor and investigating the case, they will contact your parent's insurance company. They will give the insurance company the information the attorney has. This will allow the insurance company to know what they need to cover. For example, if your parent was told not to drive and the other driver sues them, the insurance company can give them a settlement offer. The personal injury attorney will help the insurance company by bringing the settlement offer to the other attorney to see if they will accept it. If an agreement cannot be met, the case may go to court.
Contact a personal injury attorney in your area to learn much more about how they can help you.