People often overlook causes of different types of accidents and injuries and instead assume that no one can be held accountable. In fact, many injuries are legally someone else’s fault, and parties that you might not expect can be held accountable for the accident.
Our attorneys help injured victims and their families investigate their cases, collect evidence, and bring claims against the responsible parties. Our goal is to get you the compensation you need for the damages the accident caused you, potentially including full coverage for medical care, lost earnings, and pain and suffering.
Call (844) 876-4357 today for a free case review with Howe Law’s Atlanta personal injury attorneys.
Types of Injury Cases You Can Sue for in Stockbridge, GA
Many people are familiar with injuries in cases where there is a clear “at-fault” party. This includes things like car crashes, where the other driver can be held accountable, or slip and falls, where a store or business can be held accountable. However, people often overlook or miscategorize other injury cases without understanding that they also involve a responsible party and an injury you have grounds to sue for.
Auto Accidents
As mentioned, auto accidents are perhaps the most obvious type of accident. If you were hit by a car, truck, or SUV, you can often sue the driver with the help of our personal injury lawyers. Whether you were a passenger, a driver, a biker, a motorcycle rider, or a pedestrian, you can often sue the driver whose mistakes caused your crash.
In most of these cases, there is insurance available to cover your injuries, but Georgia law still allows you to sue in court. This can often get your case before a neutral panel instead of relying on the defendant’s insurance to pay you.
Premises Liability Injuries
Slip and falls are the most common premises liability accidents that we typically think of, but you can also sue for other injuries that occur because of dangerous conditions on someone else’s property. Whether you are suing them for fire or electrical hazards that resulted in a building fire, the partial collapse of a structure, or dangerous stairs on their property, the property owner is usually the one responsible.
In cases involving slip and falls, the issue is not necessarily that a puddle formed, but rather that no one warned you about it or cleaned it up. Other dangers have similar legal considerations involved, and it is up to the property owner or operator to make the premises safe for guests and customers.
Medical Malpractice
When medical care goes wrong, we do not commonly think of that as an “accident.” In most cases, we will think of it as a “complication” and assume that the doctor did their best. With many of these “complications,” the issues only arise in the first place because of negligent decisions the doctor or medical team made. In others, the injuries come down to a true mistake the doctor should have had the skill and training to avoid.
Medical malpractice cases can often result in a lawsuit for misdiagnosis, wrongful death, surgical errors, anesthesia errors, and hospital injuries.
Work Injuries
When you get hurt at work, you might need to file an insurance claim with your employer’s Workers’ Compensation insurance to get coverage, but there are many situations where a lawsuit is available instead. Usually, you cannot sue your employer directly, but if a third party caused your injuries, you can often sue them instead of relying on the reduced payouts from insurance claims.
Wrongful Death
When a loved one is killed in an accident or by one of the other injuries listed here, your family might have grounds to seek compensation. This can pay back what the victim would have been entitled to claim in an injury lawsuit if their accident was not fatal, as well as damages that your family now faces without them. That can compensate the victim’s pain and suffering, the reasonable funeral expenses you paid, the family’s lost wages, and other damages.
The Burden of Proof in Personal Injury Claims in Stockbridge, GA
When you sue for an injury, you have to prove that the defendant was responsible for your injury. The “burden of proof” in these cases is on the victim to show that what they claim happened is actually true. Thus, you must overcome this burden to win your case.
People are often familiar with the “beyond a reasonable doubt” burden used in criminal cases. In civil injury cases, we have a much lower standard known as a “preponderance of the evidence” standard. With this standard, the jury can still have doubts about what happened; you merely need to show them that your story is more likely than the defendant’s.
Because this burden is lower, you can often file an injury case, even if a criminal case for the same conduct failed. For example, if there was an assault charge, DUI case, or even a murder trial for a victim’s injuries or death, a civil case might be successful even if the criminal case was a loss.
You must meet the burden of proof as to each element of your claim. With most civil injury cases, you will claim that the defendant was negligent rather than reckless or that they intended to hurt you With negligence, you have to show that they breached a legal duty that they were required to follow and that that breach was what actually caused your accident and injuries. You also have to prove what your injuries were and convince the jury that your damage calculations are accurate before they can award you damages.
Contact Our Personal Injury Lawyers in Stockbridge, GA Today
Contact our personal injury lawyers by calling Howe Law at (844) 876-4357 for a free case review.
