Frequently Asked Questions

If you are not successful in reaching a settlement with an insurance company you may be forced to consider a lawsuit in court. The law provides what is called a ‘statute of limitations’, which simply means a time limit is set in respect of filing your claim. By definition statute of limitations “bars claims after a certain period of time passes after an injury.” And begins to run from “the date of the injury, the date the injury is discovered or the date on which it would have been discovered with reasonable efforts”. In the state of Alaska, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two (2) years.

Determining legal responsibility for an accident or injury can be complicated but often rests on whether someone was careless or negligent. The law of negligence determines fault where a traffic violation is not obvious. Negligence is where a driver or person behaves in a thoughtless and careless way and is thus found partially or fully at fault for causing an accident. In order to prove who was negligent for an accident, four elements must be met:

• The duty of care
• Failure to perform duty of care - negligence
• Negligence caused the injury or damage to the victim
• The injured person suffered from injury, damage or loss

Often, there are a number of persons that may be liable for the trucking accident and some of these people and companies include:

• The truck driver
• The owner of the truck or trailer
• The person or company that leased the truck or trailer from the owner
• The manufacturer of the truck, tires or other equipment that may have caused the accident
• The shipper or freight loader

This is where a person is injured, harmed or suffers loss due to a product that they used.

While workers’ compensation does pay hospital and medical expenses necessary to diagnose and treat an injured employee, it also provides disability payments while an employee is unable to work.