Personal injury lawyer help in College Park, MD

If you live in or near College Park (population about 32,301) and you were hurt in an accident that was not your fault, this page is the starting point. It explains Maryland's personal injury rules as they apply to Prince Georges County residents: the three years filing deadline, the contributory negligence 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 College Park 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 Maryland. 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 (NHTSA's FARS) do not list a fatal crash coded to College Park itself from 2019 through 2023. That can mean none happened inside the community, or that nearby crashes were recorded under Prince Georges County rather than the town.

Across Prince Georges County, the records show 570 fatal crashes and 612 people killed over those five years. The yearly count was 101 in 2019, 105 in 2020, 120 in 2021, 115 in 2022 and 129 in 2023; 66% of them happened after dark.

Of the 129 fatal crashes in Prince Georges County in 2023, 47 involved a pedestrian and 40 happened at or near an intersection. Roads with more than one fatal crash in Prince Georges County in 2023: I-95 had 16, Crain Hwy (US-301) had 9, Branch Ave (State Route 5) had 6 and Central Ave (State Route 214) had 4.

A high share of the fatal crashes in Prince Georges County involve pedestrians. Pedestrian claims often turn on where the person was crossing, the lighting and whether the driver should have seen them, so photos taken at the same time of day and any nearby camera footage matter.

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 Prince Georges County 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. College Park shares its court and its Maryland rules with the rest of Prince Georges County; the detailed guides below, apply equally to accidents in College Park.

• 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

Maryland generally gives an injured person three years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit (Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-101); medical malpractice is different (the earlier of five years from the injury or three years from when it was discovered (Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-109(a))). 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 a separate deadline: 1 year, in writing, for claims against a local government such as Baltimore City or a county (Md. Code, Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 5-304(b)). Once the deadline passes, the Prince Georges County Circuit Court will dismiss the case regardless of how clear the fault was, so the practical rule in College Park is to get legal advice early.

Maryland follows contributory negligence. In plain terms, you can be barred from any recovery if the defense proves you were even 1% at fault, which makes early evidence preservation critical. Maryland's highest court kept this common-law rule in Coleman v. Soccer Ass'n of Columbia (2013), leaving any change to the legislature. 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 Prince Georges County has a direct effect on what a claim is worth.

After a crash in College Park, the at-fault driver's liability insurance is the primary source of compensation. Maryland requires drivers to carry only 30/60/15 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 Prince Georges County cases.

Lawsuits arising from accidents in College Park are typically filed in the Prince Georges County Circuit Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction for Prince Georges 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 Prince Georges County is what moves insurers to pay fair value.

Employees injured on the job in College Park are generally covered by Maryland workers' compensation, administered through the Maryland Workers' Compensation Commission. Report the injury to your employer within 10 days (Md. Code, Lab. & Empl. § 9-704) — 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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