Personal injury lawyer help in West Des Moines, IA

If you live in or near West Des Moines (population about 64,113) and you were hurt in an accident that was not your fault, this page is the starting point. It explains Iowa's personal injury rules as they apply to Polk County residents: the two years filing deadline, the modified comparative negligence (51% bar) rule, how auto insurance works here, where cases are filed and what injured people can recover. It also explains how to request a free claim review.

Our role is simple: you describe what happened in West Des Moines using the free claim review form, and your request may be shared with participating attorneys or legal services partners who handle that type of matter in Iowa. Submitting a request does not hire an attorney, and everything below is general legal information to help you make a decision, not legal advice about your specific situation.

Federal crash records list 12 fatal crashes inside West Des Moines from 2019 through 2023, in which 12 people died. The yearly count was 4 in 2019, 1 in 2020, 2 in 2021, 3 in 2022 and 2 in 2023; 50% of them happened after dark.

Of the 2 fatal crashes in West Des Moines in 2023, none involved a pedestrian and 1 happened at or near an intersection. No single road in West Des Moines recorded more than one fatal crash in 2023.

Across Polk County, the same records show 176 fatal crashes and 190 people killed over those five years.

Most fatal crashes in West Des Moines happen after dark. In night crashes, evidence about street lighting, headlights, speed and visibility tends to decide fault, and much of it disappears within days.

Source: NHTSA Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), final data for 2019 to 2023. FARS counts every crash on a public road in which someone died within 30 days; a crash counts for West Des Moines when the reporting agency coded it there. Counts for one place are small and swing from year to year, so read them as a picture of local risk, not a forecast.

Different attorneys handle different claims, so identify the type of accident early. West Des Moines shares its court and its Iowa rules with the rest of Polk County; the detailed guides below, apply equally to accidents in West Des Moines.

• Car Accident claimsCar Accidents
• Truck Accident claimsTruck Accidents
• Motorcycle Accident claimsMotorcycle Accidents
• Pedestrian Accident claimsPedestrian Accidents
• Slip and Fall claimsSlip & Fall
• Workplace Injury claimsWork Injuries & Workers' Comp
• Medical Malpractice claimsMedical Malpractice
• Wrongful Death claimsWrongful Death

Iowa generally gives an injured person two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit (Iowa Code § 614.1(2)); medical malpractice is different (two years). Wrongful death claims follow their own deadline, which can differ from the one above. Claims against a city, county, school district or state agency follow separate and often much shorter deadlines. Once the deadline passes, the Polk County District Court will dismiss the case regardless of how clear the fault was, so the practical rule in West Des Moines is to get legal advice early.

Iowa follows modified comparative negligence (51% bar). In plain terms, you can recover as long as you were not more than 50% at fault, and your award is reduced by your share of fault. Insurance adjusters apply this rule from the first phone call, which is why the way an accident is described and documented in the days after it happens in Polk County has a direct effect on what a claim is worth.

After a crash in West Des Moines, the at-fault driver's liability insurance is the primary source of compensation. Iowa requires drivers to carry only 20/40/15 in coverage (thousands of dollars for bodily injury per person, per accident, and property damage), which serious injuries quickly exhaust. Underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy and claims against additional responsible parties often make the difference in Polk County cases.

Lawsuits arising from accidents in West Des Moines are typically filed in the Polk County District Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction for Polk County, although cases can sometimes be filed where the defendant resides or does business, and claims against out-of-state trucking companies or manufacturers may end up in federal court. Most claims settle before trial, but the credible ability to try a case in Polk County is what moves insurers to pay fair value.

Employees injured on the job in West Des Moines are generally covered by Iowa workers' compensation, administered through the Iowa Division of Workers' Compensation. Report the injury to your employer within 90 days of when you knew or should have known the injury was work-related (Iowa Code § 85.23) — that notice deadline is short and missing it can end the claim before it starts — then file the formal claim within two years. Workers' compensation does not pay for pain and suffering, so when a third party such as a subcontractor, driver or equipment manufacturer caused the injury, a separate personal injury claim is often worth pursuing alongside it.

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