Personal Injury Lawyer in Lewes, DE: Serving Cape Region and Coastal Sussex Towns

A Lewes personal injury lawyer is a Delaware attorney who represents people hurt in crashes and accidents in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach and the rest of coastal Sussex County, including visitors from other states, and who brings their claims before insurers or in Superior Court at the Sussex County Courthouse in Georgetown.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer obtains the Lewes Police, Rehoboth Beach Police or Delaware State Police report, emergency records from Beebe Healthcare, rental car paperwork when the injured person was on vacation, and every policy that might pay. Those pieces become a claim the insurer must evaluate under Delaware law.

Most Lewes cases are car, motorcycle, pedestrian and bicycle crashes, and the office also handles workers' compensation, dog bite, wrongful death and civil sexual abuse claims. Aman Sharma, Esq. (Delaware Bar ID No. 5706) is responsible for the Lewes office's cases. What sets those cases apart is summer, when the coastal population swells with visitors using the same few roads.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer handles a different mix of cases in July than in January. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, DE-1 (Coastal Highway) past Lewes and Rehoboth Beach and through Dewey Beach fills with visitors, many driving unfamiliar roads in rental cars or in cars with Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. plates. Stop-and-go traffic produces rear-end crashes, and drivers hunting for a turn into a shopping center or the outlets make sudden lane changes.

The Cape May-Lewes Ferry adds a New Jersey connection. The ferry terminal sits beside Cape Henlopen State Park and sends cars from Cape May, New Jersey, onto Lewes roads that lead to US-9 and DE-1. US-9 continues west from Lewes toward Georgetown, and DE-24 (John J. Williams Highway) carries traffic toward Long Neck and Millsboro.

Beach towns also mean people on foot and on bikes. Pedestrians cross DE-1 between hotels, restaurants and stores, and cyclists ride the Junction and Breakwater Trail between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach and share the streets of downtown Lewes with drivers. The main hospital here is Beebe Healthcare's Margaret H. Rollins Lewes Campus at 424 Savannah Road.

For a visitor, the injury is only part of the problem. The claim is in Delaware, while the injured person lives, treats and works somewhere else. Delaware law, covered next, decides much of what happens.

The same road carries three names in the paperwork. DE-1 is signed as Route 1 and is called Coastal Highway through the beach towns, so a police report, a rental agreement and a hospital record can each name the crash location differently, and we match them up before the insurer argues the reports describe different places.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer applies Delaware law to crashes on Delaware roads, and that includes crashes involving people who were only in town for the week.

PIP and out-of-state policies. 21 Del. C. § 2118 requires Delaware-registered vehicles to carry at least $15,000 per person and $30,000 per accident in PIP, which pays medical bills and lost net earnings regardless of fault. A visitor from Pennsylvania or New Jersey carries a policy written for that state's rules, and sorting out which coverage pays first is a large part of an out-of-state crash claim. Our out-of-state car accident lawyer page covers this in more detail.

Comparative fault. Delaware's modified comparative negligence statute, 10 Del. C. § 8132, reduces damages by the injured person's percentage of fault and denies recovery above 50%.

UM/UIM. If the driver who caused a Lewes crash had no insurance, or a policy smaller than the harm done, the uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy is the next source. Delaware's minimum liability limits are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, and other states set their own minimums.

Deadline. Delaware's general deadline for personal injury claims is two years (10 Del. C. § 8119), but deadlines vary by claim and some notice requirements are much shorter. Talk to us before assuming you have time.

Court location. A Lewes injury lawsuit is normally filed in Sussex County Superior Court at the Sussex County Courthouse, 1 The Circle, Georgetown, west of Lewes on US-9. Visitors who have gone home handle much of the case by phone and mail, with travel for a deposition or trial only if the case gets that far. The case types below show where these rules get applied.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer at our Jingle Shell Way office takes the cases below. Practice page links appear where we have them.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer at The Sharma Law Firm takes cases on contingency, which matters to visitors who do not want an open-ended bill from another state. Our contingency fee is 33.33% of the recovery. No attorney's fee unless we recover, and we advance case costs. If we don't win, you owe nothing. If the case succeeds, the costs we advanced are reimbursed from the settlement or recovery.

The Lewes office is open 24/7, with meetings by appointment only. Call (302) 556-8593, including from out of state. Hablamos español. Our Spanish-speaking paralegals, Santiago Araujo, Humberto Buitrago and Isaac Durango Figueroa, work with Spanish-speaking clients and workers in the beach communities.

How a Lewes case moves from start to finish:

1. You call from Lewes, or from home after your trip, and we review the crash for free.
2. We identify every policy: yours, the other driver's, and any rental or rideshare company's.
3. We send preservation letters for video from DE-1 businesses and for vehicle data.
4. We collect records from Beebe Healthcare and from the doctors who treat you afterward, in Delaware or at home.
5. We send a demand package to the liable insurer.
6. We file in Sussex County Superior Court in Georgetown if the insurer does not make a fair offer.
7. The case ends by settlement or trial, and costs and liens are paid out of the recovery.

Clients who are still in the area then meet us at the office on Jingle Shell Way.

The Lewes personal injury lawyer's office is at 19413 Jingle Shell Way, Unit 2B, Lewes, DE 19958, in a multi-tenant commercial plaza on Coastal Highway (DE-1). Driving south on DE-1, the plaza comes up just past the Nassau Bridge as you enter Lewes, a few minutes from the Tanger Outlets.

Several businesses share the same street number, so enter the full address with Unit 2B in your map app rather than searching for the firm name. Beebe Healthcare's Lewes campus on Savannah Road and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry terminal are both a short drive from the office.

Meetings are by appointment only, so call (302) 556-8593 first. The office serves the coastal towns listed next, from Prime Hook Beach south to Fenwick Island.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer at this office covers Lewes itself, including Lewes Beach, the historic downtown, Nassau, Belltown and the Five Points area, plus the coastal Sussex towns along DE-1, US-9 and DE-24.

Along the ocean, we serve Rehoboth Beach, Henlopen Acres, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, South Bethany and Fenwick Island. North of Lewes, clients come from Prime Hook Beach. West along US-9 and inland, we serve Harbeson, Hollyville and Angola. Around Indian River Bay, we serve Long Neck, Oak Orchard, Millville, Ocean View and Clarksville, and farther south, Frankford, Bayard and Selbyville near the Maryland line.

Milton is served by our Milford personal injury office, and Delmar and the western Sussex towns by our Seaford personal injury office. Many coastal clients also ask whether they need a lawyer near the beach at all.

A Lewes personal injury lawyer is the practical choice when the crash happened in coastal Sussex County, because the police report, the Beebe Healthcare records, the witnesses and the Georgetown courthouse are all nearby.

For a visitor who has already gone home, the local office still matters, since someone has to gather evidence along DE-1 and appear in the Sussex County court. What a visitor gives up is the in-person meeting, and much of the case runs by phone, email and mail. If the crash happened in your home state rather than Delaware, a lawyer admitted there may be needed. Answers to the most common Lewes questions follow.