Car Accident Lawyers in Montgomery, Alabama

What to do first after a car wreck

Get checked out, even if you think you walked away from it. Neck, back and closed-head injuries often surface a day or two later, and a gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster points at.

Photograph the scene before the cars are moved — resting positions, damage, skid marks, the other car's tag. Get the other drivers insurance card and a number for anyone who stopped. Witnesses go home and become impossible to find.

Be careful with recorded statements. No Alabama law requires you to give one to the other driver's insurance company. One offhand sentence about the seconds before impact can be used to argue you were partly at fault, and here that can end a claim.

Report the wreck to your own insurer anyway. That is how the uninsured motorist side of your policy opens.

How a car accident claim works in Alabama

The claim is against the at-fault driver, but the money almost always comes out of an insurance policy. Alabama sets the floor at $25,000 for injury to one person, $50,000 where two (2) or more are hurt, and $25,000 for property damage. Ala. Code § 32-7-6. Simply put, that is the least the other driver can lawfully carry, not what he has.

Where that driver was on the job, his employer may answer for him, and separately for its own hiring and entrustment of the vehicle. Those direct claims may proceed even where the employer admits the driver was in the line and scope of employment. Poplin v. Bestway Express, 286 F. Supp. 2d 1316 (M.D. Ala. 2003). While the liability policy is what people ask about first, it is often not where an Alabama car case is decided.

Alabama's contributory negligence rule

This rule decides more Alabama injury claims than any other, and most people hurt in a wreck here have never heard of it.

Only four (4) states and the District of Columbia still apply contributory negligence: Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. A plaintiff who carries even a small share of the fault recovers nothing on a negligence claim. Not a reduced amount. Nothing. The Supreme Court of Alabama declined to replace it with comparative fault, leaving any change to the Legislature. Golden v. McCurry, 392 So. 2d 815 (Ala. 1980).

Why does that bite harder in a car wreck than anywhere else? Because both drivers were driving. The adjuster does not have to prove you caused it. He only has to raise a question about your speed, your following distance, whether you had time to avoid it. That is a far lower bar, and it is why the recorded-statement request comes early and sounds friendly.

It is important to note that the crash report is not a finding of fault. An adjuster who reads the officer's box back to you as though it settled the legal question is not describing Alabama law.

There is a real limit on the rule. Contributory negligence is not a defense to wantonness — the conscious doing of an act, or omission of a known duty, while aware injury will likely follow. Bohannon v. Driskell, 519 So. 2d 1314 (Ala. 1988). Depending on the facts, running a red light at speed or driving impaired may support the count.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

Ala. Code § 32-7-23 requires every automobile liability policy issued in this state to provide uninsured motorist coverage, and gives the named insured the right to reject it. The statute defines an uninsured motor vehicle broadly: a driver with no insurance, one whose limits fall below the § 32-7-6 minimums, an insolvent carrier, and the case where all available liability limits total “less than the damages which the injured person is legally entitled to recover.” § 32-7-23(b)(4). That last one is underinsured coverage; Alabama never gives it a separate statute.

Stacking has a ceiling in the same section. Recovery under one contract is “limited to the primary coverage plus such additional coverage as may be provided for additional vehicles, but not to exceed two additional coverages.” § 32-7-23(c). Three (3) cars on one policy, three (3) coverages.

Then the trap. If the at-fault driver's carrier offers policy limits and you sign a release, you may have just ended your own underinsured claim. Most Alabama policies contain a consent-to-settle clause and the Supreme Court of Alabama enforces it. In Turner v. State Farm Mutual Insurance Co., decided May 29, 2020, the carrier declined consent and tendered its own $25,000 check. The injured man sent it back and settled anyway. He lost the underinsured claim.

The protection comes from Lambert v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 576 So. 2d 160 (Ala. 1991). Notice goes to your own carrier before anyone is released. To keep its subrogation rights that carrier must then advance you an amount equal to the offer; if it refuses consent, denies the claim without a good faith investigation, or sits on the file, it waives subrogation. Either way you keep the settlement. Nobody sends the notice, that protection is gone.

Your car: total loss, actual cash value and diminished value

The property damage side has rules of its own, written where almost nobody looks: Chapter 482-1-125 of the Alabama Administrative Code, the Department of Insurance's claims-handling regulation.

When your own policy settles a total loss, the insurer has two (2) approved methods. It may offer a replacement automobile by the same manufacturer, same or newer year, similar body style, options and mileage. Or it may pay the actual cost of a comparable automobile, taxes and transfer fees included. Ala. Admin. Code r. 482-1-125-.08(1). Anything else has to be documented, and every deduction, salvage included, must be “measurable, discernible, itemized and specified as to dollar amount.”

Diminished value is where the internet gets Alabama wrong. The regulation says it “is not intended to and does not create a duty on the insurer to pay for any alleged diminution in value of the automobile.” r. 482-1-125-.08(6). It is a Department of Insurance enforcement standard, not something a person sues on directly.

Evidence and deadlines

Two (2) years, and it goes faster than it sounds. Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) requires an action for injury to the person to be brought within two (2) years. A wrongful death case belongs to the estate's personal representative and “must be commenced within two years from and after the death.” Ala. Code § 6-5-410(a), (d).

The proof moves faster than the deadline. Vehicles get repaired or sold for salvage, camera footage is overwritten in days, skid marks wash away. While two (2) years sounds like plenty of time, the evidence that decides a contributory negligence fight is usually gone inside two (2) months.

What affects the value of a car accident case

No lawyer can tell you what a case is worth over the phone, and one who does should worry you. What can be said is which facts move the number: how permanent the injury is, how cleanly the records tie treatment to the wreck, how much coverage is there, and how much contributory negligence risk the facts carry.

Alabama measures death cases differently, and families are rarely told this early. Damages under Ala. Code § 6-5-410 are punitive rather than compensatory. Geohagan v. General Motors Corp., 279 So. 2d 436 (Ala. 1973). The jury is not measuring what the family lost. It is measuring how wrongful the conduct was.

Car accidents in Montgomery specifically

Interstate 65 and Interstate 85 meet in our city, U.S. 80 runs east and west through the county, and city streets carry the rest. Those do not produce one kind of case.

The state's numbers put it in scale. In 2024 Alabama recorded 140,118 crashes, 36,601 injuries and 967 traffic fatalities, and hitting another vehicle was the first harmful event in 102,474 of them. Montgomery County recorded 7,627 intersection-related crashes, 1,971 non-intersection crashes and 44 traffic fatalities. Statewide the circumstance officers recorded most often was failing to yield the right of way, at 23,983 crashes, then tailgating at 16,506. Those come from ALDOT's 2024 Alabama Traffic Crash Facts, and each is an officer's primary cause, not a legal finding.

Venue is worth knowing early. In state court a case here goes to the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Where the parties are citizens of different states and more than $75,000 is at stake, an out-of-state defendant can remove it to the Middle District of Alabama, Northern Division. 28 U.S.C. § 1332.

Frequently asked questions

How long do I have to file a car accident claim in Alabama?

Generally two (2) years. Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) governs injury claims; Ala. Code § 6-5-410 gives the estate's personal representative two (2) years from the death.

Can I still recover if the wreck was partly my fault?

In many cases, no. Alabama still applies contributory negligence, and a plaintiff found even slightly at fault recovers nothing on a negligence claim. Golden v. McCurry, 392 So. 2d 815 (Ala. 1980). Contributory negligence is not a defense to wantonness, so the facts matter a great deal.

Do I have to give the other driver's insurance company a recorded statement?

No Alabama law requires it. Your own policy is different: it is a contract that typically requires you to cooperate with your own insurer.

What is uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, and do I have it?

Every Alabama automobile liability policy has to provide it unless the named insured rejects it. Ala. Code § 32-7-23(a). It reaches drivers with no insurance, drivers carrying less than the state minimums, and cases where all available limits fall short of the damages you are entitled to recover.

Can I stack uninsured motorist coverage across the cars on my policy?

Within one contract, up to a point. Ala. Code § 32-7-23(c) limits recovery to the primary coverage plus additional coverage for additional vehicles, “but not to exceed two additional coverages.”

The other driver's insurer offered policy limits. Can I just take it?

Not without telling your own underinsured carrier first. Releasing the at-fault driver without notice can cost you that claim. Under Lambert v. State Farm, 576 So. 2d 160 (Ala. 1991), a carrier wanting to keep its subrogation rights has to advance an amount equal to the offer first.

My car was totaled. How does the insurance company have to value it?

Under Ala. Admin. Code r. 482-1-125-.08, a first party total loss is settled either by offering a comparable replacement automobile or by paying the actual cost of one, taxes and transfer fees included. Deductions have to be itemized to the dollar. The regulation creates no duty to pay diminished value.

What does it cost to talk to a lawyer about a car wreck?

Nothing. We handle these cases on a contingency fee, and there is never a fee for legal services unless we collect for you.

Talk to a Montgomery car accident lawyer

Barfoot & Schoettker is a small Montgomery firm whose practice focuses on personal injury. We handle car and truck wreck cases across central Alabama.

If you or a family member was hurt in a wreck, contact us for a free case evaluation at (334) 834-3444. There is never a fee for legal services, unless we collect for you. Ultimately, the sooner someone reads the policies and looks at the proof, the more of both is still there.