Personal Injury - How Do I Know if I Have a Case?
If you’ve been injured, we may be able to help you recover money from someone else to compensate you for your injuries. However, you must have evidence to show that your injury is someone else’s fault. The following is a general statement of the law pertaining to personal injury and is not intended to apply to a specific case.
Negligence is the basis of most Personal Injury cases. To most people, the word “negligence” means “careless.” But in the legal world, the word “negligence” is a term of art whose meaning differs from the way the word is used in ordinary conversation. To recover money from someone for an injury based on that person’s negligence, you must be able to prove:
-
Duty--That the Defendant had a duty of care to you.
-
Breach of Duty--that the Defendant did something he or she wasn’t supposed to do or failed to do something he or she should have done.
-
That as a result of the Defendant’s actions or inactions, something happened to you
-
That the “something” that happened to you was something the law recognizes as damages.
Let’s apply this concept to an automobile collision.
- Defendant’s Duty—everyone driving an automobile has a duty of care to everyone else on the highway to operate it safely, in accordance with the traffic laws.
- Breach of Duty---the Defendant operates his or vehicle in an unsafe manner such as by speeding or failing to stop his or her vehicle at a red light.
- Causation---Because the Defendant was speeding or did not stop at a red light, the Defendant’s car struck your car and injured you.
Let’s apply this to a case where you slip-and-fall on lettuce at a supermarket:
- Defendant’s Duty---the person who owns or controls real estate open to the public has a duty to keep the premises clear of defects of which the person responsible for the premises knows or should know exist.
- Breach of Duty---If there is lettuce on the floor and it is green, chances are it just fell on the floor and is thus it is not a known defect and therefore the store is not responsible. But if the lettuce is brown, chances are it’s been there awhile and therefore, the store should have known about it and cleaned it up.
- Causation—Because the store didn’t clean up the floor, the lettuce on which you slipped and fell was on the floor, and as a result, you were injured.
Strict liability makes the Defendant responsible for damages regardless of any "fault" on their part.
Strict liability applies to inherently hazardous activities, such "blasting" or keeping wild animals. If the blasting damages you -- no matter how careful the blasting company was -- it is liable for the injury. Similarly if the animals escape and injure someone, the fact that the Defendant used the world's strongest cages and the highest standard of care imaginable is no defense.
Strict liability also applies to unsafe products. You don’t have to show the Defendant was negligent. All you must show is that the Defendant made or sold the product, that the product was defective (including the way it was designed, manufactured, or labeled with sufficient warnings), and that the defect caused your injury.
Dog bites are another common example of strict liability. All you need prove is the Defendant owned the dog and the dog bit you. You don’t need to show the Defendant didn’t train or control the dog or even that the Defendant knew of the dog’s dangerous propensities.
Intentional acts are another basis for a personal injury claim, including:
Assault – Placing a person in reasonable apprehension of harm likely to occur coupled with the present ability to cause such harm
Battery - harmful or offensive touching of the person of another without consent or legal privilege, such as self-defense.
False imprisonment – confining a person in a specific location without consent or legal privilege.
Intentional infliction of emotional distress – Outrageous conduct (beyond mere words) that is intended to cause, and does cause, severe emotional distress. This is often difficult to prove. Typical examples are egregious tactics of debt collectors and sexual harassment.
Damages you can recover in a personal injury case are either “special damages” (peculiar to your case) or “general” (damages everyone suffers from the same kind of case).
Special Damages are quantifiable and include:
- Medical Expenses paid or incurred to treat your injuries.
- Medical Expenses you will incur in the future.
- Loss of Wages while you are recovering from your injuries.
- Future Wage Loss.
- Damage to your property (example: collision damage to your car).
- Loss of use of your property (example: cost of renting a car while it is undergoing repair).
- Lost profits from a business.
General Damages, unlike Special Damages, are not quantifiable and difficult to fix and are commonly defined as those money damages, which are presumed to be a result of the other party’s actions. Examples would be:
- Pain and suffering; mental anguish.
- Loss of use of a body part and crippling effect of an injury.
- Loss of ability to perform various acts.
- Shortening of life span.
- Loss of companionship.
- Humiliation and embarrassment from scars.
- Loss of anticipated business.
- Loss of future earning capacity.
Legal Fees on personal injury cases with some exceptions* handled on a contingency basis. Our rate is 33% for all cases which do not go to trial. If a trial starts, our rate goes to 40%. The client is responsible for all out of pocket costs, including but not limited to Court filing fees. However, if the client’s income or assets are below a certain level, the Court can waive the filing fee.
*If we deem a case legally sufficient, but not economically viable on a contingent fee basis, and the client still wants to pursue it “on principle” to “get justice”, we will do so at our usual hourly rates.
Return to Services Page
|
How Can We Help You?
|
