Injuries happen all the time. If an injury is serious, you may be stuck undergoing medical treatment for a long time. This treatment can get quite expensive depending on the nature of your injuries. Additionally, you may want some kind of recompense or justice if you suspect that you were injured because another party was negligent.
If you got injured because someone else was negligent, we can help you. Our attorneys have fought for many clients in personal injury lawsuits, and we can put that experience to work helping you with your case. The sooner you retain legal counsel, the better.
To get a free case review from our Tuscaloosa, AL personal injury lawyers, call Howe Law at (844) 876-4357.
How Our Northport, AL Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help You with Your Claim
Most people recognize the need for competent legal counsel when pursuing a personal injury claim. However, there may be a knowledge gap as to what exactly our personal injury lawyers can do while waiting for trial. Below, we will walk you through some of the ways that our lawyers can assist you while representing you in a personal injury lawsuit.
Analyze Your Case
Our job starts with taking a serious look at your case and figuring out how everything fits together. Once you retain us as counsel, we can start discussing your case in depth and advise you on the options you have for how to proceed. At the same time, we will be considering how to build a strong argument for you to take to trial and what our next steps should be.
Collect Evidence
Another thing that our lawyers can do for you is collect evidence to help improve your case. In law, anything that has any tendency to prove something to be more or less likely to be true can be let into court as evidence.
Accordingly, you can get stuff that can be used as evidence in court from a wide variety of sources. We can get evidence of your injuries and medical treatments you underwent from various medical providers. We can contact relevant police stations to obtain any police reports surrounding the accident that led to your injuries. We can talk to opposing counsel and get information from their end through a process called “discovery,” where lawyers share information before trial.
While we do all this, you can focus fully on your recovery from your injuries.
Talk to Adverse Parties
Our attorneys can also speak on your behalf with parties that may not have your best interests at heart. Opposing counsel and adverse insurance companies do not want what you want. In the case of opposing counsel, this goes without saying. They are representing the defendant, not you.
In the case of insurance companies, they may appear as if they are cooperating with you. Indeed, to some extent, they may be. However, for the most part, insurance companies are trying to create a narrative where they are not on the hook to pay out their policy. They may try to downplay your injuries or the situation surrounding the accident. More likely, they will try to get you to downplay the situation for them. You need to choose your words carefully when speaking to representatives from insurance companies. Even saying something as simple as “my bad” or “I could have done better” can indicate to insurance that they may not need to provide coverage. For this reason, it is better to have our attorneys, who know what – and what not – to say to insurance companies, interact with them on your behalf.
What Do You Need to Win a Personal Injury Claim in Northport, AL
To win a personal injury lawsuit, you need to prove that the defendant was negligent. “Negligence” in the legal field means that the defendant did something careless and, as a result, someone else got hurt. The court is looking for you to prove four “elements,” or parts, of negligence. Those elements are duty, breach, causation, and injury.
Duty
A “duty” is simply an obligation one party has to another. Often, this is used in contracts to describe what one party must do. In the context of the general public, however, it generally refers to the “duty of care.” This essentially means that people need to act in a way that would not cause harm to others.
One thing that is important to note is that the standard of a “reasonable person” often goes beyond how people actually act in reality. For example, many drivers will go above the speed limit from time to time in order to keep pace with the flow of traffic or get where they are going, but this is a violation of the speed limit law, which makes it legally unreasonable.
Breach
Breach means that someone did not uphold their duty of care. For example, speeding would be a breach of the specific duty imposed by speed limit laws. As another example, eating while driving might be a violation of the general duty to drive reasonably, as it could be seen as objectively dangerous.
Causation
The causation element is arguably the most important element in proving negligence. It is also probably the one most argued about by the lawyers for each side of the case in court. At first glance, this one seems easy: all you have to do is prove that the defendant caused your injuries, right?
To satisfy this element, you actually have to prove more than that the defendant simply caused your injuries. You have to prove that they were the “proximate cause” as well. A proximate cause is a cause that is sufficiently related to your injuries. For example, a bus driver getting drunk and hitting you as you cross the street would be a proximate cause of your injuries. The fact that a liquor store sold the bus driver their drink of choice a week before when they were sober technically helped cause the accident, but it is not related closely enough to implicate the liquor store.
Injury
Injury simply means that you were actually injured. You can prove this through medical records, eyewitness testimony, photos, and other evidence.
Talk to a Northport, AL Personal Injury Lawyer
Howe Law’s personal injury lawyers can be reached to talk about your case at (844) 876-4357.
