What Types of Cases Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Handle?
Did you know that accidents and unintentional injuries are the third leading cause of death in the United States? Every year, motor vehicle crashes, falls, and other accidents lead to serious injury and even death.
Sometimes accidents just happen. However, in other instances, injuries are caused by the negligence of another party.
When you’re injured due to the fact that someone else was careless or irresponsible, it’s only fair that they be financially responsible for your losses.
Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney can ensure that your medical bills, loss of income, and other damages are covered by the reckless or irresponsible party.
Are you wondering what types of cases a personal injury lawyer takes? Let’s take a look at everything you need to know.
Motor Vehicle Accident Cases
Most of the personal injury cases in the US result from car accidents. Typically, when a car accident occurs it means that someone isn’t driving as carefully as they should be or they aren’t following the rules of the road. Of course, sometimes weather or other occurrences are responsible and no one is particularly at fault.
In general, a careless driver is considered financially responsible for the injuries that result from a car accident they caused. There are, however, “no-fault” states where injured drivers receive money from their own insurance companies except in the case of more severe injuries.
Medical Malpractice Cases
Medical malpractice is more common than you might think. When a health care professional provides treatment that doesn’t meet the standard of medical care and it injures or harms a patient, it means there are grounds for a personal injury case. However, it’s important to understand the difference between a doctor being negligent and a treatment plan not working as hoped.
Slip and Fall Cases
Another very common type of personal injury is slip and falls. One out of every five falls leads to severe or serious injury such as a head injury or broken bones, according to the CDC. There are 800,000 patients every year that occur as a result of someone falling. Falling is also the most common cause of TBI or traumatic brain injuries.
Workplace Injury
Out of all of the nonfatal work injuries that occurred in 2018 that resulted from taking time off of work, 27% of them were the result of slips, falls, and trips. Other leading causes of injury in the workplace include overexertion and bodily reactions as well as contact with equipment and objects.
When you’re injured at work, there is a chance that your injury wouldn’t have occurred had the business acted differently to ensure your safety. In these cases, workers will often receive workers’ compensation. However, workers’ compensation doesn’t cover all types of damages, meaning that you might also have a personal injury case to help reimburse you.
Dog Bite Cases
If a dog bites someone or otherwise injures them, the owners are usually held financially responsible. In different states, there are different laws about dog bites.
For example, in some places an owner can be liable for a dog bite even if the dog had never before shown any signs of being aggressive. In other locations, there is a “one bite” rule which means that once owners have a reason to know that their dog is prone to biting or aggressive they then become responsible for personal injury damages.
Product Liability Cases
Defective products can create all kinds of dangerous situations and can cause injuries like falls, drownings, poisoning, and burns.
Lots of different types of products can be defective in a way that causes injury. Things like medical devices, auto parts, lawn equipment, and children’s toys can harm people if they don’t function properly.
Medications being contaminated or having unlabeled side effects is also an example of a potential product liability case.
Premises Liability Cases
It is the legal duty of property owners and sometimes tenants to ensure that the premises is free of hazards and reasonably safe. There are different laws depending on your location about what a landowner’s duties are in terms of what they are and aren’t liable for.
There are a lot of different types of premises liability cases that a personal injury attorney might take on. These include:
- Dog bites
- Slip and fall cases
- Inadequate property maintenance
- Snow and ice accidents
- Defective conditions on the property
- Escalator and elevator accidents
- Inadequate building security
- Amusement park accidents
- Swimming pool accidents
- Fires
- Toxic chemicals or fumes
- Water leaks or flooding
In order to win a premises liability case, the person who was injured has to prove that the ownership and or maintenance of the property was negligent on the part of the landowner. Negligence typically means that the owner didn’t use reasonable care in terms of the property.
Just because you were injured while on someone else’s property it doesn’t necessarily mean that the owner was negligent. Even if there were unsafe conditions on the property, it also doesn’t automatically make the owner a negligent party. In order to win a case like this, you have to be able to prove that the owner should have reasonably known or knew that there were unsafe conditions on the property and didn’t work to remedy them.
Are You Looking For a Personal Injury Attorney?
As you can see, there are a wide variety of occurrences that can justify hiring a lawyer due to a personal injury. While it’s possible to make a personal injury accident lawyer Wyoming claim on your own, a personal injury attorney will be able to help you navigate the complicated legal system. If someone else’s negligence has led to you being injured, you deserve to be compensated.
