Category: Personal injuries

Winter time inevitably causes people to slip on snow and ice. They dont wear the right shoes or boots, the driveway wasnt plowed and the street wasnt sanded. If you fall and injure yourself while slipping on snow or ice, can you be compensated (get money) for your injuries?

The short answer is maybe. In any snow and ice case we look to see what the condition was like at the time you fell. If it was the middle of a blizzard and nobody had time to clear the parking lot in the middle of the night, its not looking good to be able to prove that the owner of the property should have taken steps to clear the lot of snow and ice. The key to proving liability in a snow and ice case is whether the owner of the property knew of a dangerous condition and failed to timely act to correct it. This is called notice. If the owner didnt know about a dangerous condition, how can he be held responsible for your injuries? He wont be. But, what if the icy condition existed for a few days or weeks? Everybody who lived nearby always saw the ice and nobody ever salted or sanded the ice. In that situation we would argue that the owner of the property knew, or should have known, that there was a dangerous and icy condition on his property.

What if someone actually tells the owner of the property about an icy area of his lot and he doesnt do anything to fix the problem? Well, as long as nobody gets hurt, hes avoided a lawsuit. However, if someone does get injured at that location, after someone has specifically notified him of a dangerous condition, and he fails to correct the danger, then in all probability he will be held responsible for failing to prevent injuries at that location.

Sometimes, the owner hires a snow removal company (a snow plow) to plow the driveway, street, sidewalk or parking lot. In some cases, these snow plow companies dont do a good job and leave piles of snow in areas where they will melt, re-freeze, and then create sheets of ice throughout the property. If the snow plow or property owner knew that putting all that snow at the top of the hill wasnt a good location, there are some cases where the owner or snow plow operator will be held responsible for your injuries.

If you fall and are injured during the winter months it is very important that you do three things:

(1) Look around to see what you slipped on. Take a mental note about the conditions where you fell and the surrounding conditions.

(2) When possible, get photographs of the condition as soon as possible after you fell. This will preserve evidence of what the area looked like when you fell. Make sure you take at least an entire roll of film, from all different angles. Dont just take a picture of the ice. Look for a street sign, a building, and an address that can also get in the picture. This way you can positively identify the location where you fell, at a later date. If you use a digital camera do not ever make any changes or alterations to your photos when you provide them to your attorney.

(3) If you dont go to the hospital or a doctor immediately, you should report your accident to the owner of the property to put them on notice of your accident.

Injuries from slipping on ice or snow can be very serious and can include broken bones and the need for surgery. Take time to think whether this could have been prevented. Or was your fall simple carelessness that could have been prevented if you were paying attention to where you were walking? The answer is sometimes difficult to answer. Thats why an experienced injury attorney can help guide you and advise you about your legal rights. The longer you wait to speak to an attorney, the greater chance you have of forgetting important information that could help you in a potential case.

The best advice is to be careful while outside and to make sure youre wearing the right winter gear. But even that doesnt always prevent an injury.

Ice skating injuries – They happen. Its a fact. Even to experienced skaters. You will always see big signs posted at every entrance to every skating rink in New York that ice skating is a dangerous sport. The warning will say that you Skate at your own risk. That is the same as saying buyer beware!

What happened? The girl could not control the snowtube and went off the trail, tragically causing her death. Is the resort responsible for her untimely death? In all likelihood the answer is no. She engaged in a dangerous activity, in a prohibited and restricted area. The snowtube is uncontrollable- which is what makes it so much fun. However, snowtubes are typically used in special areas or chutes designed to keep the tubes in a runway style area, so that there is no way to run off a trail.

Many people have tried to sue skating rinks and ski resorts for injuries they suffered while engaging in these fun filled but dangerous activities. Most have failed. On occasion there have been successes, but those are the exceptions. Where you actively choose to engage in a dangerous activity and disregard the hazards and dangers associated with that activity (rock climbing, water skiing, sky diving), you run the risk of injury and the chance that you will not be able to bring a successful lawsuit for your injuries. But remember, every case is different. Let an experienced injury attorney evaluate your own case.

Be careful out there this winter, and have fun while you can.

Choosing a personal injury attorney can be as simple as a basic search on the internet. Suppose choosing the right personal injury attorney was just a matter of asking the right questions? That would make your task a whole lot easier.

If you have suffered injury due to an accident, you are entitled to claim compensation. You need access to good personal injury claim advice to help you win your full claim amount.

If you have suffered injury due to an accident, you are entitled to claim compensation. This is a sum of money awarded to you to compensate for the pain you have suffered, and reimburse you for the financial losses you incurred because of it.

As an accident victim, claiming compensation is your right. However, your insurance company will take advantage of inconsistencies in your claim and slash the amount it pays as compensation.

You need access to good personal injury claim advice to help you win your full claim amount. A lawyer experienced in personal injury would be the best source for this.

Below are the five important aspects of good personal injury claim advice:

1. Assessing the validity of your claim. You can receive compensation only if you can prove that you suffered injury because of someone else’s mistake. The validity of your claim is thus an important part of any good injury claim advice.

2. Calculating the amount of compensation. The amount of compensation differs from case to case. An experienced lawyer will study your case to give you sound personal injury claim advice on the maximum amount of damages you could ask for.

3. Ensuring correct filing procedure. A compensation claim needs to comply with precise legal procedures. A lawyer with experience in personal injury cases will advice you on the proper protocol required to file your claim.

4. Negotiating a settlement. As a claimant for compensation, you may receive an offer for settlement from your insurance company that is less than what you have asked for. Guidance on negotiating a good settlement is an important part of personal injury claim advice.

5. Filing a lawsuit. If you are not satisfied with the compensation you receive, you have every right to take your dispute to the court. Your lawyer will offer you competent personal injury claim advice to help you win the suit to recover compensation.

Not everyone has time to ask for referrals while choosing an attorney. Most people prefer to do a search on the internet but this is not a fool-proof method. Before you make your choice, you need to ask a few questions. Here are some criteria to select a personal injury attorney.

Experience in court

An attorney who has experience going to trial will be better able to represent you than someone who is new to personal injury claims.

Experience in handling similar cases

There are many different kinds of personal injury cases. If the attorney does not have experience in cases similar to yours, he might not be the best person to represent you.

These standards will give you a fair understanding of the experience and success rate of the personal injury attorney you are considering.

Personal injury circumstances are critical matters and shouldn’t be taken lightly. These instances often induced grave damages reminiscent of everlasting incapacity to the injured particular person and even results in death. At this level, the service of a lawyer who specializes on this area is drastically needed to recuperate monetary damages akin to medical therapies, substitute completely lost income, and compensate for his or her pain and suffering.

Selecting a certified and experienced private injury lawyer is very important to boost the probabilities of receiving honest compensation. So if you’re a sufferer of a private damage you need to select the appropriate and competent lawyer to characterize you. In selecting the appropriate defender, you need to consider this stuff:

Your personal damage lawyer should be an professional in private damage law.Should be able to accurately assess the merits of a personal harm case, approximate its monetary worth, and determine the perfect technique for pursuing it. An intensive experience in the area should even be thought-about by the victim. And most importantly your lawyer have to be also up to date with the current and latest developments in personal damage law.

In choosing your personal harm lawyer, you also needs to think about his skilled in dealing with insurance companies. Since insurance firm legal professionals symbolize most personal injury case defendants.

Skilled in trial courtroom of your personal injury lawyer can be a bonus since, personally injury legal professionals generally acquire favorable settlements by threatening to take cases to trial. On this circumstances, the defendants are sometimes keen to pay out more cash to the plaintiffs to keep away from, destructive publicity, expensive trials and the prospect that a courtroom would award the plaintiffs more money.

Physical harm or psychological anguish attributable to actions or negligence of one other get together is an example of personal damage cases. These instances embody Auto Accidents, Defamation of Character, Product Defects and Medical Malpractice to name only a few. So in order for you an assurance that your personal injury case might cross in the eyes of the regulation contact a authorized skilled in your state now.

In case you have been a sufferer of negligence–carelessness by one individual or enterprise you should receive a just compensation for the damages that which were incurred upon you.

There are many ways a personal injury attorney can get compensated for the sustained work such as: a flat fee, an hourly tariff, contingency fees etc. However most of the lawyers tend to be rather expensive and many people who want to take their case to court cannot afford them. In these cases it’s possible to strike a deal with the attorney which will only get paid if the case is successful. In this instance a commission for the lawyer from the final compensation fee is agreed upon from the start.

The quantity of compensation is awarded based on the energy of your documentation and the gravity or diploma of injury. An expertise legal professional in personal injury regulation is really helpful with the intention to maximize your compensation within the face of the Insurance corporations, which usually defend such cases.

Personal injury is the legal definition for injury or damage taken to the physical body, mental integrity, emotions and does not cover damage sustained by objects or other kind of physical properties. During personal injury trials the lawyers will try to prove that the sustained injuries are due to the negligence of a third party.

Types of personal injury

There are many different types of personal injury claims involving individuals, companies and even state organizations. The most common personal injury cases are car accidents, home accidents, injuries sustained due to product malfunction, work injuries, personal assault and vacation accidents. Other types of personal injury include medical and dental injuries or diseases and conditions caused by the fault of a third party. These kinds on injuries may refer to medical negligence, diseases inflicted by the working environment like mesothelioma, chronic bronchitis, asthma, deafness, eye problems, mental issues caused by too much stress etc.

If the court will decide in the favor of the person who sustained the personal injury, then the accusing party will benefit by a monetary compensation. Due to this aspect there are many voices that raise questions over the legal system because some people are willing to do what ever it takes in order to win a personal injury claim. Sometimes the lawyers also are tempted to bend the law because in many cases they are entitled to a share of the claim amount if they win the case.

Time limit of personal injury claims

In some countries there is a time limit before which a person can claim compensation following an accident. For example, in England, the personal injury claim must be made at most 3 years after the situation occurred, otherwise the claim will be declared void. This might pose some issues especially to the people who were under the age of 18 when the accident happened and thus could not open a court trial and there are also the cases of diseases caused by working environments which make their presence sensed only after 5, 10 or even 15 years since the exposure to that particular environment.

Main responsibilities of personal injury attorneys

The responsibilities of a personal injury lawyer are also of professional and ethical nature. After they are licensed to practice law, personal injury attorneys are able to file for complaints, write legal papers, argue cases in court and offer support and legal advice to personal injury victims. They are also responsible for interviewing clients in order to establish the exact circumstances of how the personal injury took place and to determine if the case will have a solid ground in front of the legal court.

The main responsibility that and personal injury attorney has is to help victims obtain the justice and compensation they are entitled to after sustaining the personal damage. However, lawyers dealing with personal injury claim cases must also adhere to the strict rules of law ethics in the professional relationships with their clients. They also must pledge loyalty and confidentiality to all clients they represent.

Before getting into details you should know that establishing a personal injury claim value is not an exact science and that outcomes may vary from case to case depending on a multitude of factors, with human nature being one of the most important.

Here are some of the most common references that will be taken into consideration by the legal court when establishing any personal injury compensation value:

1. Liability: It’s very important to know who was the culprit of the incident which led to the injuries. For example, in the vast majority of car accidents, there is a clear and unambiguous culprit which will have to answer in front of the law for his or her deeds. In case of an accident with questionable liabilities and evidence, with a lack of culpability, it’s very difficult if not impossible for anybody to succeed in obtaining any settlement value.

2. Injury Type: In case that you sustained severe injuries it is highly advisable to look for a good personal injury lawyer who can offer judicial assistance in order for you to get a just compensation for your claims. However, you sustained only minor injuries as a result of the accident (whiplash, bruise, strains, bump etc.) you can handle the legal complaint by yourself.

3. Your age: Usually, the younger you are, the more you stand to receive a compensation payment. The best settlement results are obtained by personal injury victims under the age of 12 due to their obvious innocence and by persons over 60 years of age who usually benefit from a greater sympathy from the court members during lawsuits.

4. Your gender: In normal situations, personal injury claim values are the same for both men and women. However there could be exceptions from this rule, like for example in the case of visible scars caused by the accident. In this case, it would be considered that a woman would endure more hardships than a man from visible scarring and therefore she would be awarded a greater compensation amount.

5. What kind of person you are: Here you have to be totally honest with yourself and see if your past could be a potential drag for obtaining a good settlement amount. If you have a history of law problems, a criminal record or if you were in prison for a while, then you’re more likely to get a smaller amount than an average beneficiary who did not have any legislative troubles in the past.

6. What kind of person the culprit is: If the person who caused the accident is known to have has issues with the law in the past and has had a series of lawsuits being under accusation, then you stand to earn more from a potential legal settlement in court. However, if he’s known to be spotless and on top of that he’s one of the community’s most notable philanthropies, then your case is not so solid anymore.

7. Damage types: When establishing your personal injury claim value, you should take into account the several damage types that your attorney can invoke in court: medical special damage (cost of ambulance, x-rays, diagnostics, emergency room, drugs, therapy, etc.), evidence of non medical special damage (lost wages and profits, child care costs during disability, lost vacation days, etc.) and/or property damage (car repair costs, damaged clothing, real-estate devaluation etc.). Depending on the nature of the accident, there can be only one of them, several, or all three.

In case of any lost wages it is important for you to know that this is one area that could have a great impact on your final personal injury claim value. This is mostly because it’s one of the situations that you have the most control over. For example, you can earn a great deal more if you were doing commissions and overtime work. Here, a letter from your employer stating the amount of your overtime hours would weigh heavily in your favor during the personal injury lawsuit and would ensure that you are entitled to just compensation.

You should also know that you are entitled to monetary compensations for your lost wages even if you have no actual loss of income! It can be that your company pays you the normal wage during recovery or that you take some sick days, thus you would be getting your normal wage. Regardless of that, the court could decide that you’d get compensation for lost time and earnings.

If, following the accident you can no longer work in the same environment and you are forced to get a lesser paid job or to work half time at your previous rate, you should know that you are entitled to compensatory amounts but make sure that your employer documents all the changes that take place.

It is important to remember to always correctly record and present (to your lawyer and to the court) all of your costs caused by the accident, all of your lost wages and earnings because they could all greatly increase your personal injury claim value in the end.

In a bid to make a claim for compensation following her husband’s death a woman was recently shocked to find that her income was used as a yardstick for considering how much she would be paid. This prompted the woman into challenging this decision at an appellate court.

The appellate court, a High Court, made a decision setting aside the earlier ruling as it said the income of an accident victim’s family member should not have any bearing on the amount of compensation that they are entitled to after an accident.

As much as this issue is clearly resolved by this decision, it is worth the trouble to explore the circumstances leading to an accident claim and what could be considered it determining its success or failure.

What is accident claim?

Accident claims could be defined, according to a web dictionary, as compensation claims made by a victim (or victims) of an accident in which they sustain injuries or property is damaged. Accidents could range from minor to major ones and they could occur on the road, where cars or motorbikes or bicycles are involved, or at workplace as a result of inadequate training in the use of safety equipment and the like.

In addition, accidents could occur in private premises like retail stores or home or in public places and it could take forms like a slip or fall or something suddenly happening and resulting in some form of injury or damage, minor or serious.

Where any of the above occurs the victim is entitled to compensation, and claims must be made, especially if it is not the victim’s fault or as a result of their negligence.

How are claims for compensation considered?

Claims for accident compensation are usually awarded on the basis of certain essential variables. Among these are the seriousness or gravity of the claimant’s injuries, which could be both physical and psychological and the financial losses or damage incurred as a result of the injury.

In considering the financial losses suffered, the fact that an accident victim is practically put out of action and out of work is important for the success of the claim. It also plays a crucial role in determining how much could be awarded in the end. However, the most important factor in determining how much a claimant is awarded is the injury sustained. This explains why a claimant who would need physical assistance for the rest of their life is awarded the maximum compensation, usually, to enable them acquire equipment and hire the services of assistants that would help facilitate all the assistance they would need for as long as they are alive. In the same vein it says why someone whose injury does not render them physically dependent is awarded much less.

The loss of breadwinner’s income

In the scenario earlier mentioned, the woman whose breadwinner’s death renders them permanently unable to get the income that used to come in the form of the deceased’s salary, determining how much they get in compensation depends also how much is lost financially and the cause of the accident in the first place. But it is usually left for the court to decide on the account of evidence available to it. The onus of proving this is on the victim’s solicitor.

The court’s ruling in voiding the earlier decision is unambigous in that it debunked the conclusion that because the victim’s dependent had been given a job on compassionate ground removed the loss dependency suffered.

The above is one case that could vary from several hundreds of others. For accident claims to be successful there’s a need to show that someone else is at fault, resulting in the accident in which the victim suffered the injuries. Proving this is not as easy as it sounds, but solicitors often know how to go it, even on a no win, no fee basis.