What Does the Las Vegas, Nevada Car Accident Court System Look Like?

When your car accident case doesn’t settle and you end up in Court, which Court are you actually in? In Las Vegas, Nevada, there are three main Court levels for car accident cases. These Courts are called Small Claims Court, Justice Court, District Court. Each Court has a higher jurisdictional amount, meaning how much they can award.

Small Claims Court hears cases, where the value of your car accident case is $7,500 or less. Small Claims Court is great for Las Vegas auto wreck cases, where your medical bills are in the $2,000 to $3,500 range. In Small Claims Court, everything is moved along at a relatively fast pace and your case gets resolved quickly.  As part of the Small Claims Court process, you and your Las Vegas personal injury attorney will meet with the insurance company’s attorney at mediation. At mediation, an impartial third person tries to get both sides to come to an agreement on settlement.  If no agreement can be reached, then on a separate date, everyone goes in front of the Small Claims Court  Judge and the Judge makes their decision on what you as the injured person should receive.  If the insurance company is unhappy with the Small Claims Judge’s award, then they can appeal it to the Justice Court Judge.

If you Las Vegas auto accident case is valued at between $7,501 and $9,999.99, then you can go directly to Justice Court. Although Justice Court is not as fast as Small Claims Court, it is still a place where your case can be resolved in a relatively speedy manner. In Justice Court, the insurance company is allowed to do some limited formal fact finding regarding your case. Once that is completed, then you will go before the Judge, who will decide the amount to award you.

If you have a serious injury, then you will be placed in District Court, where all matters with a value of $10,000.00 or more are heard. If you case is worth between $10,000 and $50,000, then your case will be funneled through an expedited system, called Nevada’s Non-Binding Arbitration Program. That program is another blog in and of itself, so that will be discussed in a future blog post. In District Court, if your car accident case does not settle, and it is worth more than $50,000, then your case could take 1 to 2 years to resolve. These are reserved for the most serious of cases, such as if you had surgery or require lifelong care.

Next time, we will discuss how the settlement process works.