Personal Injury Lawyers in Montgomery, Alabama

What to do first after an injury

Get medical attention, and go back when they tell you to. Neck, back and closed-head injuries often surface a day or two later, and a gap before the first treatment note is the first thing an adjuster points at. Photograph the scene before anyone moves it, and get a number for anyone who saw it.

Be careful with recorded statements. No Alabama law requires you to give one to the other side's insurer, and the questions aim at one thing: your share of the fault.

Ultimately, call before the proof is gone. Camera footage is overwritten in days.

How injury cases work in Alabama

An injury claim is usually a negligence claim, and negligence has four (4) parts. "To establish negligence, the plaintiff must prove: (1) a duty to a foreseeable plaintiff; (2) a breach of that duty; (3) proximate causation; and (4) damage or injury." Lemley v. Wilson, 178 So. 3d 834 (Ala. 2015). Simply put, somebody owed you care, they fell short of it, that is what hurt you, and the harm is real.

There is a second and harder count called wantonness, which Ala. Code § 6-11-20(b)(3) defines as "conduct which is carried on with a reckless or conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others." Why does that distinction matter here? Because the defense that ends most Alabama negligence claims does not answer a wantonness count.

Which kind of case you have decides the rules

Car wrecks turn on fault and on whatever coverage sits behind the other driver, which is why the uninsured and underinsured side of your own policy often decides the case. See car accident claims in Alabama.

A wreck with a commercial truck is a claim against a business, on federal safety rules, with far larger policies. See truck accident and 18-wheeler cases.

A bad medical outcome is not automatically malpractice. The Alabama Medical Liability Act writes its own rules for who may testify and when the clock starts. See medical malpractice claims in Alabama.

Where someone died, Alabama measures the case by how wrong the conduct was rather than by what the family lost, and only the estate's personal representative may file. See Alabama wrongful death claims.

An injury on someone else's property turns on why you were there and whether the hazard was hidden or obvious. See premises liability claims in Alabama and slip and fall injury claims.

A failed product runs against the company that made or sold it — see defective product claims. Where your own insurer is the problem, that is its own claim: insurance bad faith claims.

Who can be held responsible

Usually more people than the one standing there. An employer answers for an employee acting in the line and scope of the work, and separately for its own decisions in putting that person on the road. Alabama follows the minority rule on the second piece: negligent entrustment, hiring, supervision, training and retention claims may proceed even where the employer admits the employee was in the line and scope. Poplin v. Bestway Express, 286 F. Supp. 2d 1316 (M.D. Ala. 2003). They may go forward, which is not the same as saying they succeed.

Deadlines: two years, and some far shorter

The general rule is two (2) years. "All actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract and not specifically enumerated in this section must be brought within two years." Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l). A death claim belongs to the estate's personal representative, also within two (2) years. Ala. Code § 6-5-410.

The exceptions are where people lose claims they actually had. Where a city is responsible — a public sidewalk, a city vehicle — "[c]laims for damages growing out of torts shall be presented within six months from the accrual thereof or shall be barred." Ala. Code § 11-47-23. A written claim to the city, not a lawsuit. Where the United States is responsible, at Maxwell Air Force Base or in a federal building, the claim is "forever barred" unless presented in writing to the right agency within two (2) years. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).

Medical cases run on their own statute, starting at the act rather than at discovery. Ala. Code § 6-5-482(a). Where the injured person was a child, Ala. Code § 6-2-8(a) gives someone below the age of nineteen (19) when the right accrued "three years, or the period allowed by law for the commencement of an action if it be less than three years, after the termination of the disability." Since an injury claim already runs on two (2), two (2) years is what runs, measured from the end of the disability rather than from the injury.

Alabama's contributory negligence rule

This rule decides more Alabama injury claims than any other, and most people hurt here have never heard of it until an adjuster is building toward it.

Only four (4) states and the District of Columbia still apply contributory negligence: Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia. Everywhere else, a plaintiff who carried part of the fault has his recovery reduced by his share. Here it is not reduced. It is barred.

Asked in 1980 to replace it with comparative fault, the Supreme Court of Alabama declined, leaving "any change of the doctrine of contributory negligence to the legislature." Golden v. McCurry, 392 So. 2d 815 (Ala. 1980). The plaintiff there had stipulated he was one percent (1%) negligent. He recovered nothing. Nothing has changed since.

Two things never come up on the first call from an insurance company. First, it is the defendants rule to prove. Contributory negligence is an affirmative defense that has to be pleaded, Ala. R. Civ. P. 8(c), and ordinary carelessness will not establish it as a matter of law: there must be a finding "that the plaintiff put himself in danger's way and a finding that the plaintiff appreciated the danger confronted," and that appreciation must have been "a conscious appreciation at the moment the incident occurred." Hicks v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 652 So. 2d 211, 219 (Ala. 1994), quoted in Mathis v. Harrell Co., 825 So. 2d 735 (Ala. 2002).

Second, it is no answer to wantonness. "Contributory negligence is not a defense to wantonness if the jury is reasonably satisfied from the evidence that the defendant was guilty of wantonness." Bohannon v. Driskell, 519 So. 2d 1314 (Ala. 1988).

While that is the law, the practical part is simpler. An adjuster does not have to prove you caused it to make the file harder. He only has to raise a question about your speed, or where you were looking. That is why the recorded-statement request comes early and sounds friendly, and why a box on a crash report is not a finding of fault.

What a personal injury lawyer costs

This work is done on a contingency fee: an agreed share of what is recovered, set out in writing before anything begins, paid out of a recovery rather than out of your pocket along the way. There is never a fee for legal services, unless we collect for you. No recovery, no fee. See how Alabama personal injury lawyers get paid.

The first conversation is free, it costs nothing to find out where you stand. Sometimes the answer is that there is no claim. Better heard in week one than month eight.

What affects a case's value

No lawyer can tell you what a case is worth on a first phone call, and one who does should worry you. What can be said is which facts move it: how permanent the injury proves to be, how cleanly the records tie treatment to the event, how much insurance is there, and how much contributory negligence risk the facts carry. We do not publish settlement figures and we do not predict outcomes.

Personal injury cases in Montgomery specifically

Our office is on Taylor Circle in Montgomery. A case filed in state court here goes to the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, at the Phelps-Price Justice Center on South Lawrence Street. 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, downtown. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a).

For scale, ALDOT's 2024 Alabama Traffic Crash Facts, prepared by the Center for Advanced Public Safety at the University of Alabama, recorded 140,118 crashes and 967 traffic fatalities statewide in 2024. Forty-four (44) of those deaths were in Montgomery County. Those are recorded crashes, not claims.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have a personal injury case in Alabama?

It depends on the facts. Alabama asks whether someone owed you care, fell short of it and caused the harm. Lemley v. Wilson, 178 So. 3d 834 (Ala. 2015). Then it asks whether you shared the fault.

How long do I have to file a personal injury 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. Claims against a city, against the United States, and medical claims run shorter.

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

In many cases, no. A plaintiff found even slightly at fault recovers nothing on a simple negligence claim. Golden v. McCurry, 392 So. 2d 815 (Ala. 1980). It has to be pleaded and proven, and it is no defense to wantonness.

What is Alabama's contributory negligence rule?

A plaintiff whose own negligence contributed to the injury cannot recover on a negligence claim, however small his share. Only Alabama, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia and the District of Columbia still apply it.

What does it cost to hire a personal injury lawyer?

Cases are handled on a contingency fee, agreed in writing at the start and paid out of a recovery. There is never a fee for legal services, unless we collect for you. The first conversation is free.

Do I have to give 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.

My child was hurt. Does the two-year deadline still apply?

Ala. Code § 6-2-8(a) gives a person below nineteen (19) when the right accrued three years, or the ordinary period if it is shorter, after the disability ends. An injury claim runs on two (2) years, so two (2) years is what runs — from the end of the disability rather than from the injury. Claims under their own statutes, wrongful death among them, can work differently.

I was hurt on city or federal property. Is the deadline different?

Yes. Ala. Code § 11-47-23 requires a tort claim against a municipality to be presented within six (6) months of accrual or be barred. A claim against the United States goes to the responsible agency within two (2) years. 28 U.S.C. § 2401(b).

Talk to a Montgomery personal injury lawyer

Barfoot & Schoettker is a small Montgomery firm whose practice focuses on personal injury — car and truck wrecks, premises injuries, malpractice, defective products and wrongful death — across central Alabama.

If you or a family member was hurt, contact us at (334) 834-3444 or request a free case evaluation. There is never a fee for legal services, unless we collect for you.