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Car Accident Lawyer in Central Pennsylvania
Jameson Stone Law represents people injured in collisions across Central Pennsylvania. Ethan Stone leads the firm’s injury work, and the firm has litigated injury matters in both state and federal court. What you are able to recover after a crash in Pennsylvania depends heavily on a choice made when the insurance was bought, often years earlier and often by somebody else in the household.
Your Tort Election
The Choice on Your Policy Shapes the Claim
Pennsylvania lets drivers choose between full tort and limited tort under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1705, and the choice binds everyone in the household covered by that policy. Full tort keeps the right to claim for pain, disruption, and permanent limitation intact. Limited tort trades that right for a lower premium and blocks those damages unless the injury clears a statutory threshold. Medical costs and lost income are recoverable either way.
Riders on motorcycles, people struck while walking, and passengers in commercial vehicles all sit outside this entirely. Someone in an ordinary car is the person it actually applies to, which is why it is the first thing worth establishing about a Pennsylvania crash claim. It is also the reason two people with identical injuries from the same collision can end up with very different outcomes.
Where the Money Is
The Other Driver's Policy Is Often Too Small
Pennsylvania’s minimum liability limits are among the lowest in the country. A driver can be fully insured and entirely legal carrying $15,000 per person, which a single night in a trauma unit will exhaust. Where a serious injury meets a minimum policy, the recovery usually turns on coverage you already pay for yourself.
Three places to look:
- The at-fault driver’s liability limits — $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident is all the law requires them to carry
- Your own underinsured motorist coverage — steps in once their limits run out, and is frequently the larger source of the two
- Your first-party medical benefits — at least $5,000, paid regardless of fault, and the only coverage that pays as bills arrive
The Threshold
Serious Injury Is an Argument, Not a Diagnosis
If limited tort applies to you, whether you can claim for pain and permanent limitation turns on clearing the statutory threshold. That is a contested question rather than a medical label, and the way it gets decided runs in a claimant’s favor more often than insurers tend to let on.
How the threshold works:
- The test — death, serious impairment of a body function, or permanent serious disfigurement
- Who decides — a jury, not routinely a judge on the papers, unless reasonable minds could not differ
- What the jury is not told — that you elected limited tort, or that the election lowered your premium
Several situations remove the restriction altogether, and they are worth checking before anyone argues about the threshold at all. If the driver at fault was convicted of DUI or accepted ARD, if their vehicle carried an out-of-state plate, or if they were uninsured, a limited tort election stops applying to the claim. That first route comes up more often than people expect.
Cases We Take
Car Accident Claims We Handle
Rear-End Collisions
Liability is rarely the fight. The other driver's version rarely survives the damage pattern.
Intersection Collisions
Failure to yield, and turns across traffic, where independent witnesses and signal timing decide it.
Distracted Driving
Multiple vehicles, and a dispute about the gap between the hazard appearing and the brakes going on.
Underinsured Drivers
A minimum policy against a claim that ran well past what it covers.
Our Process
How We Build a Car Accident Claim
01
Settle the Coverage Question First
Both declaration pages, the tort election and whether a signed waiver actually exists, and every policy in play including your own underinsured motorist coverage.
Build the Medical Record
Continuous treatment, imaging, and specialist opinion, because a gap in the record is the first thing an adjuster reaches for.
Demand and Litigate if Needed
A written demand covering losses to date and the care still ahead, with suit filed inside the deadline where the offer does not reflect it.
Frequently Asked Questions !!
What decides a Pennsylvania crash claim is usually insurance rather than injury. That is not what most people expect and not what they came looking for, but it is worth establishing before anyone forms a view on what a claim is worth.
How do I find out whether I have limited or full tort?
It is on the declaration page of the auto policy, under the coverage elections. If you cannot find yours, the agent will send it, and it can be requested as part of a case review. Two things are worth knowing before accepting what a claim file says. Limited tort has to be chosen in writing, so if the insurer cannot produce the signed election form, full tort applies. And where a named insured never returned an election at all, Pennsylvania presumes full tort by statute. Adjusters do not always volunteer either point, and a limited tort notation sitting in a file is not the same thing as a limited tort election that can be proven.
Does my own insurance pay, or the other driver's?
Both, at different times, and confusing the two costs people money. Your own policy’s first-party medical benefits pay for treatment regardless of who caused the crash, which is why there is no reason to delay seeing a doctor while fault is argued over. The at-fault driver’s liability insurance covers everything else, lost income, pain where you are entitled to claim it, and future care, but it pays once, at settlement, which may be a year or more away. Where their limits are too low, your own underinsured motorist coverage takes over. People routinely put off treatment on the assumption that nobody will pay until fault is sorted out, and that gap in the record then becomes the insurer’s best argument.
What if I was a passenger rather than the driver?
You may have more than one claim, and the coverage question gets more layered. A passenger can generally pursue the at-fault driver, and where the driver of the car they were in shares blame, that driver as well. The election that binds you is usually the one on your own household’s policy rather than the one on the car you were riding in, at least for claims against people outside your household, which surprises passengers who assumed the driver’s coverage governed everything. Where the vehicle was a bus, a taxi, a rideshare, or a rental, limited tort does not apply to you at all. Worth having both policies read before anyone tells you what your claim is limited to.
Start With the Declaration Page
Bring the policy, or just the name of the insurer, and the first thing we will do is establish what you are actually entitled to claim. Ethan Stone handles the firm’s injury work, and the first conversation costs nothing.