Personal Injury

Car wrecks, truck crashes, motorcycle collisions, and pedestrian injuries often involve more than the police report. A proper injury claim may require investigation into driver conduct, distracted driving, speeding, impairment, failure to yield, following too closely, commercial-driver records, vehicle maintenance, roadway conditions, insurance coverage, medical treatment, wage loss, and long-term impairment.

Arkansas follows a modified comparative-fault system. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122, a person claiming damages may recover only if his or her fault is of a lesser degree than the fault of the party or parties from whom damages are sought. If the injured person’s fault is less than the other side’s fault, the recovery is reduced in proportion to the injured person’s percentage of fault. If the injured person’s fault is equal to or greater than the fault charged to the other side, recovery is barred.

Comparative fault is often one of the most important issues in an injury case. Insurance companies may argue that the injured person was partly or mostly responsible, that the injury was not caused by the collision, or that the damages are lower than claimed. The evidence matters: photographs, video, crash reports, witness statements, vehicle damage, medical records, treatment gaps, employment records, and expert opinions when needed.

Commercial vehicle cases may involve additional rules and additional evidence. Trucking and commercial-driver claims may require review of driver logs, inspection records, maintenance history, hiring and training records, company safety policies, dispatch records, electronic control module data, dash-camera footage, cargo-loading issues, and federal or state motor-carrier regulations.

These cases should be investigated quickly because key evidence may disappear, be overwritten, or become harder to obtain. A preservation letter may be necessary to demand that the company preserve records, electronic data, video, logs, and vehicle evidence.

Commercial cases also often involve multiple potentially responsible parties, including the driver, employer, motor carrier, broker, maintenance company, cargo loader, vehicle owner, or manufacturer.

Property owners, businesses, landlords, and occupiers may be responsible when unsafe conditions cause injury. Premises-liability cases may involve falls, defective stairs, poor lighting, unsafe flooring, hidden hazards, code violations, negligent maintenance, falling objects, unsafe entryways, parking-lot defects, or failure to address known dangers.

These cases often turn on notice and control. The injured person may need to prove that the defendant created the dangerous condition, knew about it, or should have known about it through reasonable inspection and maintenance. The defense may argue that the condition was open and obvious, that the owner had no notice, that the injured person was not careful, or that the injury came from some other cause.

The proof may include incident reports, photographs, video surveillance, maintenance logs, inspection policies, employee testimony, prior complaints, repair history, weather records, measurements, and witness statements. Early investigation is important because video is often overwritten and conditions can change quickly.

Dog-bite and animal-injury claims may involve negligence, local animal-control rules, leash laws, prior aggressive behavior, failure to restrain, failure to warn, landlord knowledge, or other facts showing that the injury could have been prevented.

These cases are not limited to bites. A dog or other animal can cause injury by knocking someone down, chasing a pedestrian or cyclist, attacking another animal, or creating a dangerous situation. The important facts may include prior incidents, complaints, ownership, control, confinement, fencing, warnings, veterinary records, animal-control reports, and witness testimony.

Medical-malpractice cases are different from ordinary negligence cases. Arkansas medical-injury claims are governed by specific statutes and deadlines. Under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-203, actions for medical injury generally must be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrues, and the date of accrual is generally the date of the wrongful act complained of, not the date the injury is discovered. A narrow exception applies for foreign objects not reasonably discoverable within the two-year period.

Medical-malpractice cases may involve surgical errors, delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis, medication errors, birth injuries, failure to monitor, failure to refer, hospital negligence, nursing-home injuries, or other failures by health-care providers.

These cases usually require careful review of medical records and, in many cases, expert testimony. The question is not simply whether the outcome was bad. The legal question is whether a health-care provider failed to act with the degree of skill and learning ordinarily possessed and used by members of the profession in good standing, engaged in the same type of practice or specialty, in the same or similar locality, and whether that failure caused injury.

A wrongful-death claim may arise when a person’s death is caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of another. Arkansas wrongful-death claims are governed by Ark. Code Ann. § 16-62-102.

A wrongful-death action is generally brought by the personal representative of the deceased person’s estate. If there is no personal representative, the action may be brought by the heirs at law. The statute identifies beneficiaries who may recover, including the surviving spouse, children, parents, siblings, persons standing in loco parentis to the deceased, and persons to whom the deceased stood in loco parentis.

Damages in a wrongful-death case may include pecuniary injuries, loss of services, loss of companionship, mental anguish, and other damages allowed by statute and proof. Arkansas law specifically provides that mental anguish includes grief normally associated with the loss of a loved one.

Wrongful-death claims generally must be filed within three years after death, subject to specific statutory rules and exceptions. If the death arises from medical malpractice, the shorter medical-injury limitations period may apply. These claims should be investigated promptly because evidence, witnesses, insurance issues, estate authority, and beneficiary rights must be addressed carefully.

Injury claims may arise from defective products, including vehicles, machinery, tools, appliances, medical devices, consumer products, industrial equipment, children’s products, or other items that fail in a dangerous way.

Arkansas product-liability claims may involve manufacturing defects, design defects, failure to warn, breach of warranty, negligence, strict liability, or related theories depending on the facts. The claim may require proof about how the product was designed, manufactured, labeled, sold, maintained, altered, or used.

Product cases require early preservation of the product. The injured person should not repair, discard, alter, or lose the item if a defect may be involved. The product itself may become the most important piece of evidence in the case.

A personal injury claim should account for the full harm caused by the injury. Damages may include past medical expenses, future medical expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement, scarring, permanent impairment, loss of mobility, loss of enjoyment of life, property damage, out-of-pocket expenses, and other losses supported by Arkansas law and the evidence.

Medical bills are important, but they are not the whole case. Two people can have similar medical bills and very different injuries, limitations, recoveries, and long-term consequences. A fair evaluation looks at the person’s actual life before and after the injury.

Insurance companies often focus on the parts of a claim that are easiest to measure. The law allows recovery for more than a spreadsheet. The case should be developed with medical records, testimony, employment proof, photographs, treatment history, expert opinions when necessary, and a clear explanation of how the injury changed the client’s daily life.

Most Arkansas personal injury claims are subject to a three-year statute of limitations under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-56-105. That general deadline applies to many negligence claims, including many motor-vehicle, premises-liability, and ordinary injury cases.

Different deadlines may apply to different cases. Medical-injury claims generally have a two-year deadline under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-114-203. Wrongful-death claims generally must be filed within three years under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-62-102. Claims against government entities, claims involving minors, product-liability claims, insurance claims, workers’ compensation issues, and cases involving out-of-state defendants may involve additional rules or shorter practical deadlines.

An insurance claim does not preserve the right to file a lawsuit. Negotiating with an adjuster does not stop the limitations period unless the law or a written agreement provides otherwise. Anyone injured in Arkansas should have the deadline reviewed early.

A personal injury recovery is often affected by medical bills, hospital liens, Medicaid claims, Medicare claims, health-insurance reimbursement claims, workers’ compensation liens, medical-provider balances, and other asserted rights of repayment. These issues can determine how much money the client actually receives at the end of the case.

Resolving liens and reimbursement claims is part of personal injury representation. The goal is not only to obtain a settlement or judgment. The goal is to protect the client’s net recovery by identifying valid claims, challenging unsupported claims, negotiating reductions where appropriate, and making sure the client is not paying money that the law does not require to be paid.

Medicaid reimbursement is governed by federal and state law. In Arkansas Department of Health & Human Services v. Ahlborn, 547 U.S. 268 (2006), the United States Supreme Court held that Arkansas Medicaid could not take reimbursement from the entire personal-injury settlement. Medicaid’s recovery was limited to the portion of the settlement representing payment for medical care.

That distinction matters. A personal injury claim may include many categories of damages: past medical expenses, future medical expenses, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, pain and suffering, mental anguish, permanent injury, disfigurement, and loss of normal life. Medicaid does not have the same right to all of those categories.

Ahlborn held that the federal Medicaid statutes allow recovery of amounts representing payment for medical care, but the federal anti-lien provision protects the remainder of the settlement from being taken to reimburse Medicaid. Later cases, including Wos v. E.M.A., 568 U.S. 627 (2013), confirmed that a state cannot use an arbitrary, irrebuttable formula to take a fixed share of a settlement without a process for determining what portion of the recovery represents medical expenses.

The later decision in Gallardo v. Marstiller, 596 U.S. 420 (2022), clarified that Medicaid may seek reimbursement from settlement amounts allocated to medical care, including future medical care where state law allows and the allocation supports it. Gallardo did not hold that Medicaid may take pain-and-suffering damages, lost wages, or other nonmedical damages. The dividing line remains medically allocated recovery versus nonmedical recovery.

In Arkansas, the allocation issue must be handled carefully. In Prange v. Arkansas Department of Human Services, In re Estate of Martin, 2019 Ark. App. 180, 574 S.W.3d 693, the Arkansas Court of Appeals recognized that Ahlborn and Wos allow, but do not require, a ratio-based allocation. The court treated the amount available to satisfy Medicaid’s lien as a factual issue. That means the injured person or estate must be prepared to prove why the lien should be reduced and what portion of the settlement represents medical care rather than other damages.

The practical effect is important for clients. In a serious injury case that settles for less than full value, Medicaid should not automatically receive every dollar it paid if the recovery includes compensation for pain, suffering, lost earning capacity, disability, or other nonmedical harms. Proper allocation and lien analysis can substantially affect the client’s net recovery.

Private health-insurance reimbursement claims are different from Medicaid claims. Ahlborn is a Medicaid case, but Arkansas has its own important protection for injured people: the made-whole doctrine.

Under Arkansas law, an insurer generally is not entitled to subrogation unless the insured has first been made whole for the total loss. The Arkansas Supreme Court applied this principle in cases including Shelter Mutual Insurance Co. v. Bough, 310 Ark. 21, 834 S.W.2d 637 (1992); Franklin v. Healthsource of Arkansas, 328 Ark. 163, 942 S.W.2d 837 (1997); Southern Farm Bureau Casualty Insurance Co. v. Tallant, 362 Ark. 17, 207 S.W.3d 468 (2005); and Riley v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., 2011 Ark. 256, 381 S.W.3d 840.

The made-whole doctrine means that an injured person’s right to be fully compensated generally comes before the insurer’s right to reimbursement. If the settlement does not fully compensate the injured person for medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, impairment, and other damages, a private insurer’s claimed subrogation interest may be reduced or defeated under Arkansas law.

This issue must be evaluated carefully because some health plans are governed by federal ERISA law, and self-funded ERISA plans may raise preemption arguments that can change the analysis. The plan language, funding structure, employer status, insurance policy, and type of benefit all matter.

The practical point remains the same: a reimbursement claim should not simply be accepted because an insurer sends a letter demanding payment. It should be reviewed, challenged where appropriate, and resolved in a way that protects the client’s lawful recovery.

Insurance companies evaluate injury claims with their own interests in mind. They may dispute fault, minimize the injury, argue that treatment was unnecessary, blame preexisting conditions, rely on treatment gaps, delay evaluation, request broad medical authorizations, or pressure the injured person to settle before the full medical picture is known.

A settlement should account for liability, comparative fault, available insurance, medical expenses, future care, lost wages, impairment, pain and suffering, liens, litigation risk, collectability, and the client’s actual needs. Settling too early can leave the injured person responsible for future problems without compensation for them.

Our office evaluates both the gross recovery and the net recovery. A settlement number means less if liens, unpaid bills, reimbursement claims, or unresolved medical issues consume the result.

Many injury cases settle, but the case should be prepared as if it may need to be tried. Serious preparation improves negotiation and protects the client if settlement is not fair.

Litigation may involve written discovery, subpoenas, depositions, medical-record review, expert witnesses, motions, mediation, and trial. The evidence must establish liability, causation, damages, and the amount of compensation allowed by Arkansas law.

A personal injury lawsuit is not just about proving that an accident happened. It is about proving what happened, why it was legally the defendant’s fault, how it caused the injury, and what amount of money fairly compensates the client under the law.

Personal injury cases are handled on a contingency-fee basis. The client owes an attorney’s fee only if the firm obtains a recovery. The written fee agreement explains the fee and how case expenses are handled before representation begins.