What Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Do?
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Personal injury lawyers are civil attorneys who focus on cases involving injuries caused by the negligence of others. These accidents often cause injured victims financial and emotional hardships; personal injury attorneys represent these victims to obtain maximum compensation for their damages.
Most personal injury cases involve insurance companies. Unfortunately, these carriers don’t pay claims willingly. They often offer unreasonably low settlement amounts that won’t cover all of your financial expenses, let alone compensate for other things like pain and suffering.
Injured accident victims turn to personal injury lawyers every day to deal with insurance companies on their behalf. These attorneys are familiar with the tactics commonly used by insurance representatives and can usually negotiate a much higher settlement amount than you can on your own.
What Is Negligence?
Legal negligence is a key factor in personal injury cases. For your injury to qualify, you must prove that:
- The responsible party (or responsible parties) owed you a duty of care.
- Those parties failed to provide that duty of care due to negligence.
- You sustained injuries.
- The responsible party’s negligence caused your injuries.
If you have a duty of care to someone, you are responsible for taking precautions to ensure their safety, well-being, and health. Examples include people driving safely, physicians providing competent medical care, and landlords or business owners maintaining public spaces, workplaces, and rental properties so that no safety hazards exist.
What Are Common Types of Personal Injury Claims?
People qualify to make personal injury claims for many reasons, but a few are extremely common.
Car, Truck, and Motorcycle Accidents
Car, semi-truck, and motorcycle accidents often cause serious injuries. Those involving semi-trucks and motorcycles are particularly deadly; motorcyclists don’t have much protection, and the size and weight of semi-trucks make them extremely dangerous.
Construction Accidents
Construction sites are a common part of the landscape; workers build roads, bridges, buildings, homes, and more daily. Construction accidents can injure workers and bystanders alike.
Many construction sites have multiple crews working at them simultaneously, complicating things if a construction accident causes injuries. Fortunately, personal injury lawyers know how to navigate the intricacies of construction accidents to find who is responsible.
Dog Bites
Local and state governments have laws to protect those bitten by someone else’s dog; in some states, dog owners may not be liable if their dog hasn’t bitten anyone previously. In other states, owners are responsible for the first bite.
Judd Shaw Injury Law™ can help you with dog bite injuries. We will be your representative with the dog’s owner and any insurance companies and help you throughout your personal injury case.
Slip and Fall Accidents
If you sustain injuries due to a slip and fall on someone else’s property, you may be eligible to receive compensation. Your injury may qualify if you reside on rental property in some cases. However, the negligence of the property or business owner or landlord must be responsible for the accident.
To receive compensation in a slip and fall accident, you must prove that the party responsible for the property knew of a hazardous condition yet didn’t fix it or warn others about the potential safety risk.
Proving that negligence is challenging in some cases. A staircase handrail missing for months is blatantly negligent, but if an injury results from a slip and fall on a wet grocery store floor, it can be difficult to prove that store personnel knew about the water yet didn’t mop it up.
Fortunately, the personal injury attorneys at Judd Shaw Injury Law™ have extensive experience in slip and fall cases. We know what evidence to look for and how to get it.
Product Liability
While manufacturers try to sell only products that are safe to use, that attempt isn’t always successful. Sometimes unsafe products make it to grocery store shelves and into vehicle engines and medical equipment.
Unfortunately, it often takes several injuries or deaths before manufacturers become aware of problems with their products. When you see a recall notice, the company that made the product being recalled has become aware of a problem and is attempting to fix it. A personal injury attorney might be able to obtain compensation for you if product defects lead to injuries.
What Kinds of Compensation Can You Receive?
Those injured due to someone else’s negligence often face many kinds of difficulties, and the attorneys at Judd Shaw Injury Law™ can help.
Economic Damages
Accident victims often experience immediate financial hardships due to their injuries and deserve compensation. State laws and regulations govern eligibility and conditions for personal injury cases; states can also establish maximum damage amounts. Each state’s laws vary. Economic damages cover actual expenses and can include:
- Medical expenses, including hospital and doctor bills, prescriptions, and necessary medical equipment
- Lost wages due to time missed from work
- The costs associated with hiring caregivers
- Certain daily expenses
- Property (such as a damaged vehicle) repairs or replacement
Non-Economic Damages
Accident-related injuries don’t only affect you physically, but they can also cause emotional and mental harm; you deserve compensation for these issues. Non-economic damages attempt to compensate you for intangible but very real situations caused by your injuries. These can include:
- Physical, emotional, and mental pain and suffering
- Inconvenience
- The loss of the ability to enjoy life
- Relationship damages and losses
- Long-term effects of permanent disfigurement
- Diminished earning capacity if you’re permanently disabled
Punitive Damages
Although punitive damages don’t apply to every case or in every state, they are assigned in some cases. This category of damages intends to punish the responsible party financially if they are guilty of deliberate or reckless endangerment.
Why Should You Choose Judd Shaw Injury Law™?
The personal injury attorneys at the Judd Shaw Injury Law™ Firm stand by five principles that show their commitment to every client; we refer to it as the Judd Shaw Way. These principles are:
- We treat every client with respect and dignity.
- All of our actions keep your best interests in mind.
- We document all the steps we take to build your claim.
- We return all phone calls in 24 hours or less.
- We listen to and address your concerns and issues.
Judd Shaw Injury Law™ has a No Fee Guarantee ®. This guarantee means that you won’t pay us anything if we don’t get compensation for you; you don’t risk anything by allowing us to represent you. We offer free consultations so we can evaluate your case and explain your options. We have multiple locations for your convenience, but we can also come to you if you are unable to get to an office.
Our firm has years of experience winning cases like yours. Contact us today to see how we can help you. You can reach us by phone 24/7 at (866) 909-6894. You can also submit our online form or reach out via live chat.
Sources:
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/emergency-department.htm