In Moore, Oklahoma, you generally have two years from the date of an accident to file a personal injury lawsuit under 12 O.S. § 95. A Moore personal injury lawyer can review your accident, gather evidence, and pursue compensation for medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering caused by someone else’s negligence.
Getting hurt because of someone else’s carelessness, a car crash, a bad fall, a dog attack, changes your priorities fast. Our attorneys at Hasbrook & Hasbrook work with Moore-area clients on exactly these situations, and we’re happy to walk through what happened to you before you decide anything.
What Counts as a Personal Injury Claim in Moore
A personal injury claim generally rests on two things: you were hurt, and someone else, a driver, a property owner, a company, or in some cases a government entity, bears legal responsibility for it. The defendant in these cases might be an individual, a business, or an insurance carrier standing behind them, and how the facts shake out determines what you can recover.
Types of Personal Injury Cases We Handle in Moore
Our practice covers the personal injury cases we handle throughout Oklahoma, and several of them show up regularly in Moore. Vehicle crashes are the biggest driver: Oklahoma averages roughly 200 crashes a day statewide, per state crash data, a volume the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration tracks at the national level as well. Common claim types include:
- car crash claims in Moore
- collisions involving commercial trucks
- a motorcycle collision case
- a bicycle accident claim in Moore
- pedestrians struck by a vehicle
- a slip and fall claim against a property owner
- a dog bite injury claim, which Oklahoma treats as strict liability under 4 O.S. § 42.1 regardless of whether the owner knew the dog was dangerous
- catastrophic and permanently disabling injuries
- a wrongful death claim after a fatal accident
The specific cause matters less than what comes next: building the evidence, dealing with the insurance adjuster, and being ready to try the case if a fair number never materializes.
Right After a Serious Accident: What Actually Helps Your Case
What you do in the hours and days after an accident tends to shape the claim later, sometimes more than people expect.
- Get medical attention first. Call 911 if anyone is hurt.
- Have the accident reported to police so an official record exists for your insurer, or a future court, to rely on.
- Trade contact and insurance information with the other driver or the property owner, and note when and where it happened.
- Photograph the vehicles, the scene, and anything visibly injured or damaged. Our notes on properly documenting your injuries after an accident cover this in more depth.
- See a doctor promptly, even without obvious symptoms. Soft-tissue and head injuries in particular can take time to surface.
- Watch what you tell your own insurance company before you’ve talked to a lawyer.
- Get legal advice before signing off on any settlement offer.
Settling Versus Going to Trial
Most claims resolve through settlement rather than trial, largely because settlement is faster and the outcome is certain. That certainty has a cost, though: a quick number rarely captures the full extent of a serious injury. Whether to accept an offer or push toward trial depends on how strong the evidence is, how the insurer is behaving, and what a trial would realistically cost you in time and stress. An attorney can help you weigh a settlement against taking your case to trial before you commit either way.
Fault, Evidence, and Oklahoma’s Comparative Negligence Rule
Oklahoma requires proof of fault to recover damages, so evidence is the whole game. Photographs, witness accounts, medical records, and any police or incident report all matter, and they get harder to gather the longer you wait, memories fade and physical evidence disappears.
Fault is also rarely all-or-nothing. Under 23 O.S. § 13, Oklahoma bars recovery only when your own negligence outweighs the combined negligence of the party or parties you’re suing; short of that, being partly at fault reduces your recovery rather than eliminating it. Picture a $90,000 verdict where the jury assigns 30 percent of the fault to the injured person: the award would typically drop to $63,000 rather than disappear entirely. Our explanation of how Oklahoma’s comparative negligence rule differs from contributory negligence goes into more detail on how that plays out.
How Long You Have to File in Moore
Oklahoma sets a two-year deadline from the date of injury for most personal injury lawsuits, car accidents, falls, and dog bite claims among them, under 12 O.S. § 95. Let that deadline pass and the case is generally dismissed regardless of its merits.
Minors get more time. Under 12 O.S. § 96, someone injured before turning 18 generally has until one year past their eighteenth birthday, in practice their 19th birthday, to sue, even if the ordinary two-year clock would have already run out.
Lawsuits arising out of a Moore accident are ordinarily filed in Cleveland County District Court in Norman, the county seat, though disputes under $10,000 can often go through small claims court instead of a full district court case. Our overview of exceptions that can extend Oklahoma’s filing deadline covers situations that can pause or extend the two-year clock.
Moore, Oklahoma at a Glance
Moore is a Cleveland County city in the south Oklahoma City metro, threaded by the I-35 corridor. The town traces back to an 1887 railway stop and has since grown into a community of more than 62,000 residents, served by Moore Public Schools, Moore Norman Technology Center, and Randall University.
Moore has also weathered, literally, some of the region’s worst tornadoes, including the storms of 1893, 1999, and 2013. The National Weather Service’s Norman forecast office, which covers this part of the metro, has closely studied many of those events. The city has rebuilt after each one, and continued infrastructure investment along I-35 reflects that ongoing growth.
What Hiring a Moore Personal Injury Lawyer Typically Costs
Like most personal injury attorneys, we work on contingency: no upfront cost, and no fee unless we recover money for you. Our explanation of how contingency fees work for injury claims walks through how that arrangement is typically structured.
Talk to a Moore Personal Injury Lawyer
If you or someone you love was hurt in an accident in Moore, talking to an attorney sooner rather than later helps protect both your health and your claim. Hasbrook & Hasbrook offers a free consultation to go over what happened and lay out your options.
Request a free consultation about your Moore injury claim, or call (405) 605-2426 to talk with our team today.
