Your Guide To Personal Injury Law
Posted on: 24 March 2023
Personal injury is incredibly common and it can lead to severe injuries and long-term damages. Luckily, the settlements can help you get back on track. If you would like to know more, keep reading.
What Constitutes Personal Injury?
Personal injury cases occur when someone had a duty of care, and they breached that duty of care. In general, all people have a duty of care to prevent injury to other people. For this reason, you can't go around assaulting people or doing things that could purposely cause injury like drunk driving.
Personal injury cases often involve:
- Slip/fall on someone's property
- Defective product
- Dog bite/attack
- Auto accidents
For example, if you visited a friend at their home and broke your leg when the porch collapsed, you can easily prove they had a duty of care to prevent injury to visitors and they failed to do so by not repairing the porch.
What May Be Included in Your Settlement?
Your settlement is designed to make you whole again. Therefore, you can nearly always receive money for medical bills related to the injury. The courts will also approve lost wages related to the accident and treatments. In your settlement, you may also sue for:
- Property damage
- Pain and suffering
- Wrongful death
The courts may also award you punitive damage as a punishment. This, however, is often reserved for extreme situations or when people show disregard for the well-being of others. You may get punitive damages if someone purposely attacked you or mislead you into danger.
Are There Unique Circumstances?
If a trespasser gets injured, they have fewer options because the homeowner had no duty of care to protect people they don't expect. If the trespasser is a child, however, the parent may still be able to seek a settlement if they can prove the child is too young to understand that trespassing is wrong.
If you are partially or mostly responsible for your own injury, your settlement may be reduced. For example, if you harassed a dog until it attacked, you may be found responsible for your own injuries. If you live in a state with contributory negligence laws, you get no settlement if you are partially responsible.
If you have been injured because of someone's negligence, it's time to seek a fair settlement. With a good attorney, you can get the settlement you deserve to make you whole again. For more information, contact a personal injury attorney today.
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