If you have suffered a personal injury in Illinois due to someone else’s negligence, you may be entitled to receive compensation for your damages. Monetary awards can reimburse you for: 

• Medical bills
• Future medical expenses 
• Time missed from work
• Future loss of earnings
• Physical damages like auto repairs 
• Emotional trauma
• Pain and suffering
• Disfigurement
• In some cases, the court also assigns punitive damages

If you didn’t cause the incident that led to your injuries, why should you pay for your expenses? It’s time to Claim Your Justice™. Make the negligent party step up to make you whole again — get the compensation you deserve. Call us for a free consultation at 847-434-3555 

Our experienced personal injury lawyers are located in Chicago and Schaumburg, Illinois. Our skilled personal injury attorneys are here to help. We have years of experience handling all types of personal injury matters, including auto accidents, wrongful death, medical malpractice, and more.

Calculating How Much a Personal Injury Claim Is Worth

New personal injury clients often come to our office wanting to know how much their claim is worth. They may have done some research and come up with an average, but the truth is that it’s different for every injury, every state, every hospital, and every person.

Even so, there are some things you might want to presume. For example, experience has taught us that it’s almost unheard of for an insurance company to give you the best amount for an injury settlement without a fight. Never attempt to negotiate a settlement with an insurance company on your own, hire an experienced personal injury attorney to help you.

We can’t answer this question in a general sense but rest assured that it is a priority to get you this information. In fact, estimating the value of your specific claim is one of the first challenges we’ll tackle when building your case strategy. 

Common Types of Personal Injury Claims

Many people think personal injury law deals with auto accidents, but that’s not the only type of case that falls under this law. Here’s a look at some of the most common types of personal injury cases we handle, in addition to auto accidents.

Motorcycle and Truck Accidents

Cars are not the only motor vehicles that crash in Illinois. There are motorcycles, commercial trucks, buses, and even off-road accidents to consider. 

In many cases, injuries sustained in these types of accidents are more severe, on average. The sheer size and weight of trucks increase the risk of catastrophic injury and death during jackknife, underrun, and lane-change accidents. Despite extensive equipment and awareness laws, motorcycle riders lack the same safety protections they would have in passenger vehicles.

When everyone follows the rules, it should minimize the burden of auto crashes. If you believe someone was negligent and contributed to causing or increasing the severity of your injury, it’s time to call our personal injury attorneys and Claim Your Justice™.

Wrongful Death

Losing a loved one is devastating under any circumstances. It’s even worse, however, when someone else is responsible.

The law could give you the option to pursue justice on a family member’s behalf. Nothing can make up for your loss, but full compensation could help you start putting your life back together.

The Wrongful Death Act (740 ILCS 180/) governs Illinois wrongful death law. A wrongful death claim or lawsuit is closely related to a personal injury claim or lawsuit in that both allow a plaintiff to seek compensation from a negligent party who caused the injury (or death) of another person.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Accidents

Vehicle collisions with pedestrians or bicycle riders often cause severe personal injuries. Since pedestrians and bicycle riders take the brunt of the impact in a collision, it’s not uncommon to see these accidents involve at least one fatality. 

If you were injured as a pedestrian or cyclist, it is likely that the other side of your lawsuit would base their initial arguments on simplistic views of Illinois traffic law. Many people fall into this trap.

The fact is that many municipal codes and even the state rules of the road provide significant protections for you as a pedestrian. These protections could apply even if you are not on a sidewalk or in a protected crosswalk, in some situations.

Sadly, the other side might try to bully you into admitting you were at fault, even if you weren’t. This is usually because they know a jury would decide in your favor. Our personal injury attorneys fight to hold the right people accountable.

Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip-and-fall is a category of personal injury accidents. These injuries can happen anywhere: a public sidewalk, a grocery store, a shopping mall, or even a condo building. 

Property owners have a duty to ensure that their premises are safe and free of hazards. If they let their facilities fall into disrepair or fail to maintain them properly, it could constitute the grounds for a lawsuit. Many hazards could cause you to slip and fall:

• Poor lighting in a parking lot
• Loose stair railings in an emergency stairwell
• Non-compliant bathroom fixtures
• Icy sidewalks outside of an office building
• Slippery substances on the ground without proper signage
• Leaking freezers and slippery tile floors in grocery stores
• Loose carpeting in apartment building public areas
• Unsecured extension cords or other clutter in hospital hallways

These accidents can lead to traumatic brain injury, long-term joint pain, disability, and any number of serious problems. Powerful property owners might try to brush you off with lowball offers, but we fight to get what you truly deserve.

Dog Bites

Most dogs are not usually cruel by nature, and good training goes a long way. That is why it is so shocking when animals attack people. A poorly trained dog is especially dangerous due to the natural attack patterns of canines: to go for the neck, face, and other weak areas.

Training is important, which is one reason courts tend to hold humans accountable. If you were bitten by a dog, and the bite was unprovoked, the owner may be responsible for your injuries and bills. 

Dog bite injuries can be severe, causing scarring and disfigurement. Both of these are costly to treat — or simply incurable. There is also often significant emotional trauma that accompanies these types of cases. You deserve compensation for all of your injuries.

Construction Accidents

Construction sites have some of the highest risks of serious injury or death. There are so many things that could go wrong:

• Faulty scaffolding collapse
• Trench cave-in (inadequate reinforcement or soil water management)
• Poorly maintained equipment breakdown
• Inadequate weather safety accidents (rain, wind, and so on)
• Tool and machinery malfunction
• Dust diseases (silicosis, mesothelioma, and so on)

Employers must provide the proper safety equipment and maintain a safe job site, otherwise, workers are put at serious risk. The people who maintain, design, manufacture, and sell equipment, tools, and machinery also have the responsibility to contribute to a safe environment.

Sample Claim Timeline

How long does a personal injury case take? Well, similar to the value of a claim, the exact schedule depends on the details. There are, however, some things you can probably expect.

Your claim timeline starts when you get injured. From that point, most people go through some or all of the following stages:

• Seeking initial medical treatment: Your health comes first, and prompt medical attention is usually the path to the best possible outcome. Also, the court would want to know that you did everything you could to minimize the impact of your injury.
• Investigating and collecting evidence: Primary evidence degrades quickly, so gathering records and recording statements usually comes early in a case. The investigation also continues throughout the case. For example, you might add medical records to your file as doctors get a better understanding of your condition. 
• Negotiating with insurance: Insurance companies have their own agendas, so we tenaciously pursue our clients’ best interests through detailed, persuasive arguments.
• Going to trial: In some cases, especially for major injuries, massive medical bills, or deaths, the other party does not take responsibility. In these cases, a court might have to decide your case.
• Settling or getting a court decision: A settlement is an out-of-court agreement, and a decision is one that a judge delivers. Although many settlements happened before a trial begins, some deals come during the process. 

Each step is part of getting you the compensation you truly deserve. It can take time, so we strive to keep our clients informed of every development.

Types of Damages Explained

There are many types of losses. Your insurance might offer to compensate for part of your injury or disability, but you deserve to be made whole as much as possible. 

In general, you might have economic and non-economic damages. Economic is anything you can put a dollar value on bills, property damage, or lost time at work, for example. Non-economic usually means there is not a set market value: Pain, suffering, and some other types of losses. There are also punitive types, which could punish the person who injured you.

Contact a SJ Injury Law Personal Injury Attorney Today

If you suffered personal injuries in any type of accident that was caused by another party, it’s time to Claim Your Justice™. Contact SJ Injury Law today at 847-434-3555 to schedule an initial consultation with one of our skilled personal injury attorneys in Illinois.