If you have sustained an injury due to someone else’s negligence in the last two years, you may be eligible to institute a personal injury lawsuit. The lawsuit will allow you to demand compensation for pain and suffering, missed earnings, medical expenses, and other losses. However, more than 95 percent of personal injury cases end at settlement; they do not proceed to trial.
Examples of typical personal injury cases include slip and fall, workplace injury claims, dog bites, automobile or car accidents, medical malpractice, and catastrophic injuries.
Three Qualifications for a Personal Injury Lawsuit
You must answer the following questions affirmatively to be sure you have a solid personal injury claim:
- Did you experience psychological or physical harm?
- Was another person or entity responsible for your injury?
- Are there recoverable damages?
Overview of Personal Injury Law
Personal injury law entails the legal impasse that arises when someone suffers an injury from a mishap and pursues compensation from the entity legally responsible for the injury. Several personal injury cases end via settlement negotiations. In other words, most victims do not need to file a lawsuit before settling with the at-fault party.
Negligence is the core legal concept of most personal injury matters; it means failing to act with reasonable caution, as every logical person would do in the given instance, leading to someone else’s harm. Through negligence, the victim is exposed to injuries, property damage, or death.
“To win your personal injury case, you must prove liability,” says personal injury lawyer Eric Doroshow of The Law Offices of Doroshow, Pasquale, Krawitz & Bhaya.
In other words, you must establish that a logically cautious person in the at-fault party’s position would have behaved differently. The defendant could have avoided the accident if they had acted carefully or reasonably.
Instances of negligence are:
- A dog bite by an aggressive dog left to roam about
- Medical complications due to a physician’s carelessness
- A drunk or distracted motorist who triggers a vehicle crash
- A store owner who leaves their premises unkempt, leading to a slip and fall
- A dangerous crosswalk which causes a vehicle to hit a pedestrian
Types of Personal Injury Matters
There are numerous personal injury case types. However, we will focus on the typical ones in this piece:
Vehicle Mishaps
Examples of these include car accidents, train accidents, pedestrian accidents, Uber accidents, commercial vehicle crashes, boat accidents, plane crashes, bicycle accidents, motorcycle accidents, cruise ship accidents, truck accidents, and amusement park mishaps.
Slip and Fall Mishaps
This includes damaged sidewalks, poor lighting, cluttered floors, wet and slippery floors, icy walkways, damaged stairs or walkways, and ditches.
Medical Malpractice Cases
Examples include surgical errors, botched or failed procedures, birth injuries, healthcare facility negligence, misdiagnosis, anesthesia errors, and unnecessary operations.
Other Common Accident Types
Other examples include dog bites, premises liability, construction mishaps, battery explosions, workplace mishaps, catastrophic injuries, food poisoning, swimming pool accidents, and wrongful death.
The Worth of Your Claim in Personal Injury Damages
There are punitive and compensatory damages in personal injury compensation.
Compensatory damages aim to compensate the victim for their losses in an accident. An at-fault party may need to pay compensatory damages for the victim’s pain and suffering, missed work time and other earnings, loss of enjoyment of life, medical expenses, and property damage. Further, they may pay for loss of consortium, permanent disfigurement or disability, emotional distress, or wrongful death.
Punitive damages, on the other hand, aim to penalize the defendant for their wrongdoing. The courts often invoke punitive damages when the injuries are severe or if the victim dies due to the at-fault party’s extreme negligence.
Contact a Lawyer
Contact a personal injury attorney if you or your loved one sustains an injury due to another person’s negligence. The local attorney will analyze your case based on jurisdictional laws to determine if you have recoverable damages. They will protect your legal rights and may institute a personal injury lawsuit if the defendant’s insurer is unyielding.
Source: Doroshow, Pasquale, Krawitz & Bhaya Law Offices, Delaware
