West Virginia Legal Funding

In West Virginia, the state requires that businesses with three or more employees must hold workers’ compensation insurance. Exceptions to this rule include:

• Churches
• Professional sport employers
• Agriculture employers with five or less employees
• Employers with less than three employees, who all work 10 days or less per quarter
• Employers of domestic servants
• Temporary employees of the state of West Virginia
• Emergency service volunteers
• Longshore and harbor workers

Employers who do not qualify for these exceptions must legally have insurance for workers’ compensation.

You will be ineligible for financial support from Nova Legal Funding if you have already applied for a loan elsewhere for the same case.

West Virginia’s judicial system works under a pure comparative fault rule, which means that a plaintiff’s negligence affects the amount of compensation they are owed. As a plaintiff, if you are found to be 10% at fault in an accident where the total damages equal $1,000, you can only recover $900.

Under West Virginia’s statute of limitations, as a claimant, you have two years to bring your case to court after sustaining an injury. If you fail to file the case within this time frame, the courts are unlikely to hear your case, meaning you lose out on any compensation you may have been owed. This countdown typically starts from the date of the accident, however, in rare cases the symptoms may not appear until much later, restarting the time limit. You must hold sufficient evidence to prove that the symptoms appeared at a much later date when you file the case.

West Virginia is a “fault” or “at-fault” state regarding car accidents and insurance. As a plaintiff, this gives you the choice to claim with your own insurer, the insurance company of the driver at fault, or you can file a case in court to prove fault and seek compensation.

Some states enforce caps on the amount you could be owed in damages for personal injury lawsuits. These caps limit non-economic damages (the amount you could get for your pain and suffering) or damages in cases like medical malpractice. West Virginia places a cap of $500,000 on non-economic damages in cases regarding wrongful death and catastrophic injuries. This refers to cases where injuries are permanent and substantial. In other cases, non-economic damages are capped at $250,000, however, you may still be compensated for medical expenses and lost wages.