7 Common Illinois Personal Injury Questions

Who pays for the court costs and expenses associated with a personal injury case? At what point in the case does payment of court costs and expenses happen?

Pursuing a personal injury case may require expenses and some time spending money on court costs.  These expenses and court costs are advanced by Claim Your Justice™.   There are no upfront expenses paid by our injured clients.  Court costs are incurred when a case goes to court. 

The fact is that because we aggressively pursue our clients’ injury claims we are able to settle many of our personal injury cases without having to go to court.  In these situations, there are no court costs. However, we are not shy about filing a lawsuit when doing that is necessary to recover the most amount of money for our clients!  

When we do have to file a lawsuit to fight the insurance company, we advance the court costs and upon successful recovery of the case, we take our court costs back. There are no out-of-pocket expenses for our clients when it comes to filing a personal injury lawsuit.     

Claim Your Justice™ advances expenses to obtain our client’s medical records. We recover those costs upon a successful recovery.  

There’s also another expense when we would want to obtain a report from a medical specialist. For instance, in a dog bite case where a client has a scar on their face, or an auto accident case where the client is not able to walk again, we would hire an expert witness to give us an opinion letter about the permanency of the injury and the future medical bills that may be incurred to correct the scaring.

At every turn, Claim Your Justice™ is working hard for our client.  We advance the expenses and court costs when necessary to maximize the amount of money our client receives.    

If the attorney and the client disagree on accepting a settlement being offered, how is that handled?

The attorneys at Claim Your Justice™ always tell our clients they are the final decision makers as to whether to accept a settlement or not. If the client does not want to accept a settlement, the case will be filed in court. Once a case is filed in court, the case goes through the process of written discovery, depositions, and then ultimately a trial and let the jury decide as to the value of the injuries. In many cases, the jury verdict is an amount that is more than what was being offered in the settlement, and other times, the jury verdict may be less than the settlement that was being offered.  

The court system is a way the client can advocate for themselves when they want to reject a settlement. There is always a risk that when electing to go to court and a jury trial.  The risk is that you cannot predict what a jury is going to award. There are times when jurors have been in car accidents themselves and were not injured and let personal experiences influence the true value of a case.  Whereas a settlement is a guaranteed amount.

Claim Your Justice™ prides itself in explaining to our clients what we believe the value of the case is and whether a settlement is close to the value of the case.  We may recommend filing a lawsuit and going to court as our goal is always to get the most amount of money for our clients.   

What ways to improve the chances of a successful recovery in an injury case?

After an injury, you should follow the hospital’s and doctor’s instructions as to how to care for and treat your injury.  This is the best way a client can make sure the value of their case value isn’t jeopardized. In a real-life example, we had a client that has a doctor’s order to go for therapy but could not follow through as it conflicted with their work schedule. This is completely understandable, but if an injury victim has a doctor’s prescription to go for therapy and the client doesn’t follow their recommendations, when it comes time to evaluate the case there can be a conflict and the value of the injury will be negatively affected.

The insurance company and defense attorneys will question if the client was seriously injured, why would they not have gone to therapy? This can often be an obstacle to recovery and simply following a doctor’s recommendations is a great way to improve the chances of maximizing the value of your case after you have been injured.  

On average, how much time is devoted by a client to an injury case?

When a client can settle a case, there is much less time that needs to be put into that case by the client. When a case such as an auto accident injury goes through the court process, the client will be required to give a deposition and will be required to come to court for arbitration and/or a trial. So, the number of hours needed on the client side varies significantly between when a case is settled and when there is court action, and it is for the client to decide. At Claim Your Justice™, we see it as an investment as the client is investing their time in the process to achieve maximum recovery, just as we are investing our time in litigating the case. 

What happens when a case is not successful?  Who is responsible for any case-related costs or out-of-pocket expenses?

Claim Your Justice™ works on a contingency-fee-basis, meaning we only collect a fee when our client recovers money. If we lose the case, we will generally waive those costs and the client will not be personally responsible for them. As a personal injury law firm, we must assess each case individually because we do not want to invest court costs and our time in a case that we don’t think has an avenue for a successful recovery. There is a balancing act that occurs when we assess a new potential client’s personal injury case.  

We are not going to go through the process unless we are confident the case will result in a successful recovery. With more than 30 years of experience, we can evaluate your case very quickly and very accurately, so conversations with prospective clients are productive and allow us to get to the heart of the issues quickly and intelligently. 

How do you prove liability in an injury case that takes place at a business?

We have worked on many cases where clients have been injured at grocery stores, big-box retailers, and other types of stores. It is especially important that the client contacts Claim Your Justice™ early enough.  The reason this is so important is because proving liability is the first prong of any personal case.  This is how we prove liability.  Then we will evaluate the value of the injury.  

It is essential that we secure a video whenever possible, and when a client calls us if it happened in a parking lot or inside a store, we will do our best to get pictures of the are areas where the incident occurred.  This goes a long way toward proving liability. Also, when the client contacts Claim Your Justice™, we encourage them to take as much time as necessary to give us detail by detail as to what led up to what preceded the actual injury. 

Whether it was some material falling off a high shelf and hitting the client on the head, or if they slipped and fell on the floor, causing a skull fracture, or whatever the case may be.  There are a variety of ways someone can get injured at a retailer, but the most important part is the client getting to Claim Your Justice™ quickly and us doing our investigation thoroughly.     

What are other typical injuries sustained at businesses?

There are accidents that occur at amusement parks by equipment either caused by defective maintenance or a defect in the operation. We’ve also had a case where there was a guard dog at a facility who wasn’t properly restrained and bit a client. There are many ways where someone be injured at a place of business, but generally, we see injures as a result of a slip and fall or defective maintenance or equipment at retail establishments.

If you have been injured due to the fault of another contact the Illinois personal injury lawyers at Claim Your Justice™ and let us help you get the compensation you deserve for your personal injury.