People search this question at midnight after an accident, unsure whether calling a lawyer would be reasonable or ridiculous. Here's the honest framework — the same three questions an experienced lawyer runs through in the first minutes of a consultation.
Question One: Was Someone Else Careless?
An injury alone isn't a case — the injury has to trace to someone else's failure to use reasonable care. A driver who ran a light. A store that left a hazard unaddressed. A dog owner whose dog bit someone. If what happened was genuinely no one's fault, there's usually no claim — and an honest evaluation will say so.
Partial fault doesn't end the analysis. Arizona follows pure comparative fault: responsibility can be divided by percentage, and being partly at fault reduces a claim rather than eliminating it. People regularly assume themselves out of valid claims by deciding "it was partly my fault" — that's a percentage question, not a yes-or-no question.
Question Two: Is There a Real Injury?
A case needs damages — actual losses. Medical treatment, bills, missed work, ongoing pain that's documented. A near-miss or a scare, without injury, isn't a case. On the other end, injuries that seem minor on day one sometimes aren't — soreness that becomes months of treatment, a headache that becomes a concussion diagnosis. This is one reason medical evaluation soon after an incident matters: it protects your health and answers this question with records instead of guesses.
Question Three: Is There a Source of Recovery?
Practically, compensation comes from insurance — auto liability, homeowner's, business coverage. Part of any case evaluation is identifying every policy in play, and there are often more than people expect: the at-fault party's coverage, umbrella policies, and your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, which Arizona insurers must offer.
What an Evaluation Adds
You can run these three questions yourself, but a consultation adds the parts that are hard to see from inside: the deadlines that apply (two years for most Arizona claims, one hundred eighty days for public-entity notices), the coverage you might not know exists, and a grounded read on what your case might be worth — our settlement calculator is a starting point for that question. It's free, it's confidential, and "you don't have a case, and here's why" is a legitimate outcome that costs you nothing to hear.
Get a straight answer on your situation — Saguaro Injury Law offers free consultations 24/7, in English or Spanish, no fee unless you recover. Call (602) 217-0000 any hour.