Answers to the most common questions about personal injury cases:
A personal Injury case is aimed to compensate the injured party of the losses that were caused due to no fault of their own. Often times on one side are the insurance companies, large corporations or a withdrawn defendant who refuse to accept responsibility for their mistakes, and on the other side is the injured person whose whole life may have turned upside down due to the injuries or harm he or she has suffered due to the negligence of somebody else.
Personal Injury law exists to undo the wrong that has been done to the injured party. Without the personal injury suit a person would not be able to receive justice for the losses that he suffers due to no faults of his own. A personal Injury suit helps vindicate the losses suffered by an injured party and thus it helps them stand back up after they have been knocked down.
A Personal Injury Suit helps uphold the justice in society by not just helping one injured person, but many others who may have the same misfortune. It acts as deterrence for big insurance companies and corporations, and it influences them to act with due care to prevent further losses and injuries.
If you have been victim a personal injury at the hands of another then you can understand how painful it can be to suffer financial, physical, and psychological losses at the hands of another party. This is why you should contact a personal injury attorney and seek consultation in filing the suit and recovering your losses.
If you’re hurt then the first thing that you need to do is get proper medical treatment. Once your initial medicinal needs have been addressed, then you should look for an injury attorney as soon as possible. Any delay in consulting your potential attorney can cause critical evidence regarding the case to be lost permanently; this can be disastrous for your case.
As a rule of thumb, if your injury was caused due to the negligence of another party then the negligent party is responsible to compensate for the damages that you have suffered due to your injury. The specific rights and limitations of a case vary depending upon the details and facts of the case.
It is impossible to estimate the worth of personal injury compensation before knowing all the important facts about the case including what caused the injury, and how exactly it was caused.
The worth of your claim can only be determined after your medical investigation is complete and your condition has stabilized. Don’t trust anyone who tries to give you the worth of your claim before your condition is stable.
One of the most important parts of the job of a personal injury lawyer is to find all the losses that can be claimed and translated into a legal recovery. The law allows recovery for a wide range of losses, and many of these losses will not be apparent to the injured party without the help of an experienced lawyer.
The losses that can be recovered include, past medical recovery bills, future costs of medical and rehabilitation, costs of therapy, wages lost, pain and suffering, reduced earning capacity, and many more.
While the exact duration for the settlement of a personal injury law suit is difficult to predict without knowing the facts and details of a case, generally it can take up to months and years before the case is settled.
Many of the Personal Injury law suits are settled during the pre-trial period but it all depends upon the legal and factual complexities relative to the case. We have helped our clients recover millions of dollars in cases involving severe injuries. You can consult our advocates for a reliable estimate regarding the settlement of your suit, and other legal help regarding your case.
The hearing of the case in the civil court in the presence of the jury generally takes about 3 to ten days. However, preparing a case to present before the jury in court is a lengthy process and it can take months. Roughly it can take up to one year or more from the date you file the case to the date you receive your verdict.
In most of the cases, you will get the funds related to the compensation of your personal injury suit within 7 to 14 days after the release is signed. In cases that involve significantly large settlements between private individuals, insurance companies or state, the settlements often take much longer.
Excluding the filing and court expenses, our company does not charge our customers anything unless we win the case. We charge our customers a contingency fee. They will only pay our attorney if their case wins in court.
Note you still have to pay for the filing and court expenses, but your attorney will not earn any profits unless he wins the case. If he wins you will pay him a fixed percentage of the compensation you receive.
In certain cases such as the divorce cases, contingency fees are prohibited by the court. Similarly some courts capped the percentage of payout that can be received by advocates. Nevertheless Contingency fees are a great way to charge customers as payment like this gives attorneys an incentive to deliver their best, and it also makes it possible for all classes of people sue for personal injury despite their financial position.
There are no set rules to exactly what will be the payout percentage charged by the attorney it can vary from 20% to 50% depending upon a number of factors including jurisdiction, the difficulty of the case, the amount of money and labor required, the time limitations and the circumstances surrounding the case, the client attorney relationship, and the reputation of the attorney.
According to the California Rules of Professional Conduct, A lawyer in California cannot charge an unreasonable fee for his services.
Negligence in the legal sense is an act of carelessness that has caused harm. It is a very important part of the U.S Tort law, and it finds its application in many civil law suits. For example, if car runs a stop sign and hits a pedestrian then the responsibility of the accident falls on the car driver as the accident arose due to his negligence.
When Will I be considered negligent?
In Essence, you will be considered negligent in the eyes of law if you fail to act with the same level of care as another person of ordinary prudence would have acted in the same situation; you caused damage due to your carelessness, and the damage done was a foreseeable consequence of your action.
Negligence can be considered as both an act and an omission. An omission will only be considered as negligence when there was a duty on your part to act.
It is rare that the sole responsibility of negligence falls on one party, often both the defendant and the plaintiff, the injured party, share the responsibility of negligence as both of them contribute to the harm that was caused.
When the negligence of the plaintiff contributes to the harm that was caused to him or her then the state applies a comparative negligence law.
What is the law of comparative negligence?
The law of comparative negligence assigns damages by the percentage of how much each party is blamable and then both the parties pay each other for the damages accordingly. The law of pure comparative negligence is followed in California. Under this law, the plaintiff will receive the exact amount of the damages he suffered minus the amount that was caused due to his or her own negligence. For example, if the harm caused to you was 25% due to your own negligence and 80% due to the defendant then you will receive a legal compensation for 75% of your damages.
Will I still be held responsible if I am partially negligent?
Determining whose negligence caused injury to the plaintiff can be quite difficult. Often it is more than one person whose negligence contributed to the injury, and sometimes plaintiff may even have contributed to his or her own injury. The main thing is that you can receive the damages for your injury even if you are partially responsible.