What Kind Of Cases Do Personal Injury Lawyers Handle?

What Kind Of Cases Do Personal Injury Lawyers Handle?

Suffering an injury can be a traumatic experience, especially if the injury is serious and leaves you temporarily or permanently disabled. Something that can be even more disheartening is knowing your injuries would not have been suffered but for the negligence of another party. If this feels familiar to you, you probably have a personal injury claim. The following information will review the basics of personal injury cases, what constitutes a personal injury claim, what types of cases personal injury lawyers handle, and offer the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions that we hear from our clients about personal injury claims. If you have any additional questions, want more information, or are ready to schedule your free consultation with our personal injury law firm, please call us today or send us a message directly.

Types of Personal Injury Claims

At the firm of Claim Your Justice, our personal injury attorneys are prepared to work on even the most complex personal injury case types. Our practice areas include, but are not limited to:

• Motor vehicle accidents.If you’ve been in a car crash, you can make a claim for personal injuries. We work on motor vehicle crashes, multi-vehicle collisions, bus accidents, large truck accidents, and more.
• Bicycle, pedestrian, and motorcycle accidents. In addition to working on accidents that involve two or more motor vehicles, we also work on accident claims where a bicyclist, pedestrian, or motorcyclist is a victim. These cases often involve very serious injuries and significant damages.
• Premises liability accidents. When someone is injured on the property of another because of a property owner’s failure to properly maintain the property or remedy a hazard on the property, the property owner can be held liable for damages. Slip and falls, construction accidents, swimming pool accidents, and more are common types of premises liability claim types.
• Negligent security accidents Another type of premises liability case is a negligent security case. In a negligent security claim, the owner of a property can be held liable if their failure to provide an appropriate amount of security led to a crime that resulted in injuries.
• Product liability claims. When a consumer buys a product, they expect that product to be safe for use. If the product has a manufacturing, design, or labeling defect, though, it could cause the consumer harm. When this happens, the manufacturer–or another responsible party along the distribution chain–could be held liable.
• Defective pharmaceuticals. Like using various consumer products, taking an over-the-counter or prescription drug is a choice a person makes because they believe it will serve them well; we never expect legal drugs to cause a significant amount of harm. If a drug is defective and a person suffers adverse effects as a result, the drug manufacturer could be held liable.
• Nursing home abuse and medical malpractice. Doctors and nursing home professionals have a duty to treat their patients with a high level of care; when this level of care is breached, the harm to patients can be tragic. When a breach of the duty of care occurs, doctors, hospitals, or nursing homes can be held liable.
• Wrongful death claims. Finally, another type of personal injury claim is a wrongful death claim. When the wrongful act or neglect of one party leads to the death of another, a wrongful death claim for damages can be pursued by the surviving family members.

Elements of a Personal Injury Case

In order for a personal injury claim to be successful, the injured person must be able to prove four elements. Note that the burden of proof is on the injured person; the defendant isn’t responsible for disproving things. The elements of a personal injury claim are:

• Duty of care. The first element to establish is that a duty of care existed between the defendant and the injured person. In most cases, this is implied, although in some cases, such as premises liability claims, it must be established.
• Breach of duty of care. The second thing to prove is that the duty of care owed to the injured person was breached by the defendant. Usually, the breach is a result of negligence – the failure to exercise a reasonable degree of care for the situation. However, some personal injury claims, such as defective product claims, are based on strict liability.
• Causation. Third, an injured person must prove that their injuries would not have occurred but for the defendant’s breach of the duty of care.
• Damages. Finally, the injured person will need to prove that they suffered actual damages as a result of the accident. In a personal injury claim, both economic and non-economic damages are recoverable. Types of recoverable damages include compensation for medical bills and future medical expenses related to the injury, lost wages, and lost earning capacity, property damage costs, pain, suffering, and emotional distress.

Frequently Asked Questions About Personal Injury Claims

As personal injury lawyers in Schaumburg, IL, we get a lot of questions about the personal injury claims process, what constitutes a personal injury claim, how our lawyers charge, and more. Here are a few answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive.

What Qualifies as a Personal Injury Case?  

Unfortunately, you can’t bring forth a personal injury claim just because you got injured; instead, you’ll need to prove that another party was responsible for your injuries, and you’ll need to satisfy the four elements of a personal injury claim listed above. If you’re not sure whether or not you have a personal injury claim, it’s smart to set up a free consultation with one of our attorneys to discuss your options.

What Are the Three Types of Injury?

There are myriad types of injuries that a person may suffer that may result from an accident caused by the negligence of another. Rather than thinking about the three types of injury, it makes more sense to think about the three categories of damages, which are:

• Economic damages. Economic damages are damages for the actual monetary losses associated with an accident or injury, such as the costs of repairing a vehicle after a crash, or the costs of healthcare and medical bills, or the costs of lost wages if injuries render a person disabled and unable to return to work.
• Noneconomic damages. Noneconomic damages are damages for intangible losses, such as the value of a person’s diminished quality of life, physical pain, and suffering, emotional distress, psychological injury, damage to relationships, etc.
• Punitive damages. Punitive damages are less common in personal injury claims, but they are awarded in some instances. Punitive damages are used to punish a wrongdoer for the egregious action they took that led to the victim’s harm; they are not intended to compensate the victim. Punitive damages are capped at three times the amount of economic damages awarded to a plaintiff, and are only available if the plaintiff can prove that the defendant’s actions were “with evil motive or with a reckless and outrageous indifference to a highly unreasonable risk of harm…”

What Is Included in a Bodily Injury Claim?

A bodily injury claim is exactly what it sounds like: a claim for damages to a person’s body. This terminology is most commonly used in car accident claims and refers to damages for injuries sustained to the victim.

Does Personal Injury Include Emotional Distress?

Yes! As stated above, a person can seek both economic and non-economic damages, including damages for emotional distress, in a personal injury claim.

How Can I Prove My Pain and Suffering?

Proving pain, suffering, emotional distress, and other non-economic losses can be more difficult than proving economic losses but this how Claim Your Justice attorneys help. The best way to prove that you have suffered these types of losses is to gather evidence to support your claim, such as testimony from your friends and family, a personal journal, medical evidence, and expert testimony from doctors and mental health professionals. When you choose Claim Your Justice, we can help you to find experts, and also advance the costs of hiring those experts to work on your claim.

What Percentage Do Personal Injury Attorneys Get? 

One common question we hear is about to how much our lawyers get paid. First, it’s important to know we work on a 100 percent contingency fee basis, which means that there will never be any upfront or hourly costs associated with our law firm. A contingent fee means that our fee is contingent on us winning for you; if you do not win, we don’t get paid. If your case is successful, our fee is based on a percentage of your winnings. How much of a percentage varies. For example, if your case goes to litigation, then the percentage could increase. In any case, the most important thing to know about hiring our law firm is that you won’t have to pay if you don’t win, and you won’t have to pay out of pocket.

Call Our Schaumberg, IL Personal Injury Lawyers Today

If you’ve been involved in an accident and have suffered a personal injury, our Schaumberg, IL personal injury lawyers want to help you. For a free consultation with our law firm, please call us directly today. We are here to serve you.