Injuries that take you away from work, keep you from your normal daily activities, and cost you medical bills can be a huge burden on your life. Not only are you in pain and dealing with your recovery, but the impact on your financial situation could bankrupt you. Our lawyers seek to help injury victims and their families get compensation for their injuries to pay them back for the full legal extent of the harm they faced.
Our attorneys can take at-fault parties, drivers, businesses, manufacturers, and property owners to court and seek damages through lawsuits. This way, we can demand evidence and get your case before a neutral judge and an unbiased jury to decide the case instead of relying on insurance companies to pay you what you are owed.
For a free case evaluation, call the personal injury attorneys at The Reiff Law Firm today at (215) 709-6940.
Bringing a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Wilkes-Barre
If you were injured, you can often bring a lawsuit against the parties responsible for what happened to you. Identifying the at-fault party and proving they were at fault is sometimes a bit complex, but our personal injury lawyers can help.
Identifying At-Fault Parties
To sue for an injury, you need someone else to hold responsible. This does not have to be a single person, and many cases are filed against companies and corporations rather than people.
Depending on what kind of accident you were involved in, we may be looking for different parties. For example, an auto accident usually involves suing the other driver, while an injury on someone else’s property involves suing the property owner. In some cases, companies are involved, such as the company a commercial driver works for or the business that rents a commercial space.
Other injuries are caused by doctors providing negligent care, manufacturers producing dangerous and defective products, or other people acting unreasonably in any given situation.
In some cases, you can quickly identify the at-fault party because they were at the scene. They may have even given a statement to the police, and their name will be in a report.
However, sometimes it can be difficult to tell right away who manufactured a product, what parent company operates a store, or whether you can sue someone’s employer for the worker’s negligence. These are the sorts of things our attorneys can research to sue the correct parties.
Keep in mind that some cases might also involve multiple potential parties to sue.
Proving Fault
After identifying potential people or businesses to sue, we assess whether legal fault applies to any. In most injury cases, this means assessing their negligence.
Negligence is less than intentional or reckless action, and you essentially only need to show they injured you by accident. This is done by pointing to a legal duty they owed you and showing that they violated it, resulting in your injuries.
For example, drivers are required to stop at red lights, so if a driver caused your crash by running a red light, they violated a legal duty.
Many legal duties are written down in the law, like traffic laws that say not to drive drunk, tailgate, or roll through stop signs. Others are based on what is reasonable in a given situation.
In some cases, identifying the relevant duty and what the defendant should have done will be most of your case. For example, negligent medical care cases need other doctors to testify to what your doctor should have done and how their treatment fell below the “standard of care.”
Whenever we assess “reasonableness,” we use an objective standard, asking what a “reasonable person” in the same situation should have done.
Process of Suing for Injuries in Wilkes-Barre
When you sue for injuries, there are a few major stages of the case. Our attorneys can help you from beginning to end, so contact us as soon as possible so you do not miss out on potential opportunities.
Initial Aftermath
Starting at the beginning of your case is the immediate aftermath of the accident. Call 911 if you need medical treatment and report the accident to the police if relevant. For car accidents, always call the police.
If you can, get photos of any hazards for premises injuries, broken equipment for product injuries, or damaged vehicles for car crashes. Also get the names and contact info of any witnesses and anyone involved in your accident.
From there, follow up with any necessary medical care. With some accidents, your initial treatment at the hospital might be all you need, but serious injury cases involve follow-ups with specialists, mental health appointments, physical therapy, rehabilitation, and much more.
Document everything as you go: expenses related to the accident, how your pain and suffering develop as you heal, how your activities of daily living are affected, and how much work you miss because of the injury or recovery process.
As soon as you can, call a lawyer so you can get help with this stage. We may be able to collect other evidence like security camera footage or business records.
Building Your Case
Once our lawyers are on your case, we can put together the evidence we have, collect any additional evidence, and start building your case. We will file a complaint that lays out the allegations and explains to the court why the defendant should pay for your damages.
From there, the case will be scheduled for the various stages of trial.
Trial
When we take your case to court, there are many opportunities to collect evidence or negotiate a settlement with the defense. If they refuse to pay you what they owe you, we will take the case to trial and fight before the judge and jury to get you the damages you need.
Call Our Wilkes-Barre Personal Injury Attorneys Today
Call The Reiff Law Firm at (215) 709-6940 for a free case review with our personal injury attorneys.
