Personal injury lawyer help in Montgomery County, Maryland

Montgomery County, Maryland includes 30 named communities, the largest being Germantown, Silver Spring, Gaithersburg. Whether an accident happened on a county road, in a small town or in one of the larger communities, the same Maryland rules apply: a 3-year filing deadline for most injury claims, contributory negligence, and lawsuits filed in the Montgomery County Circuit Court. This page is the county-wide guide, with links to a page for each community.

You describe what happened anywhere in Montgomery County 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, not legal advice about your specific situation.

Federal crash records list 210 fatal crashes in Montgomery County from 2019 through 2023, in which 221 people died. The yearly count was 36 in 2019, 44 in 2020, 40 in 2021, 45 in 2022 and 45 in 2023; 56% of them happened after dark.

Of the 45 fatal crashes in Montgomery County in 2023, 16 involved a pedestrian and 10 happened at or near an intersection. Roads with more than one fatal crash in Montgomery County in 2023: I-270 had 5, Frederick Rd (State Route 355) had 3, I-495 had 3 and Beallsville Rd (State Route 109) had 2.

A high share of the fatal crashes in Montgomery 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 Montgomery 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.

Communities in the county with the most fatal crashes coded to them:

• Rockville, MD4 fatal crashes · 5 deaths, 2019-2023
• Gaithersburg, MD3 fatal crashes · 3 deaths, 2019-2023
• Bethesda, MD1 fatal crashes · 1 deaths, 2019-2023
• Potomac, MD1 fatal crashes · 1 deaths, 2019-2023

Each community below has its own guide with the local court, insurance rules and every type of injury claim.

• Germantown, MDpop. 86,395
• Silver Spring, MDpop. 71,452
• Gaithersburg, MDpop. 67,456
• Rockville, MDpop. 66,980
• Bethesda, MDpop. 60,858
• Potomac, MDpop. 44,965
• Olney, MDpop. 33,844
• Montgomery Village, MDpop. 32,032
• Takoma Park, MDpop. 17,713
• Damascus, MDpop. 15,257
• Clarksburg, MDpop. 13,766
• Chevy Chase, MDpop. 9,545
• Burtonsville, MDpop. 8,323
• Poolesville, MDpop. 5,201
• Derwood, MDpop. 2,381
• Kensington, MDpop. 2,330
• Cabin John, MDpop. 2,280
• Spencerville, MDpop. 1,594
• Garrett Park, MDpop. 1,044

Smaller communities in Montgomery County include Ashton, Barnesville, Beallsville, Boyds, Brinklow, Brookeville, Dickerson, Glen Echo, Sandy Spring, Suburb Maryland Fac, Washington Grove. Residents of these areas follow the same Maryland rules, use the same Montgomery County Circuit Court, and can request a free claim review from anywhere in the county.

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 Montgomery County Circuit Court will dismiss the case regardless of how clear the fault was, so the practical rule in Montgomery County 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 Montgomery County has a direct effect on what a claim is worth.

After a crash in Montgomery County, 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 Montgomery County cases.

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

Employees injured on the job in Montgomery County 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.

• Howard County, MD
• Prince Georges County, MD
• Frederick County, MD
• Anne Arundel County, MD

See the Maryland personal injury guide for every county in the state.