Frequently Asked Questions about Personal Injury Law
Frequently Asked Questions About Personal Injury Law
At the Love Law Firm, we see a lot of clients who come to us with only a vague idea of what personal injury is. We want to help you understand personal injury law before you need it.
Here are some of our more common FAQs:
Personal injury law, sometimes called Tort Law, covers with a wide area of law and case types. To sum it up, personal injury law protects those who have suffered injuries due to another person’s negligence. Because of this negligence, the defendant is responsible for making restitutions. Plaintiffs can recover damages (money) for:
- Past, present, and future medical expenses
- Past and future lost wages
- Pain
- Suffering
- Loss of companionship
- Loss of enjoyment of life
There are many other situations where plaintiffs can claim damages, but these are some of the more common ones.
Personal injury lawyers can handle a number of different types of cases. Any incident that results in the injury of another person – be it physical or psychological – can be taken to court via West Virginia’s personal injury laws.
Here are some of the more common types of lawsuits:
- Auto and trucking accidents
- Medical malpractice
- Mesothelioma/asbestos cases
- Nursing home injuries
- Products liability (defective products and medicines)
- Slip and fall accidents
- Workplace or work-related injuries
- Wrongful deaths
As a patron of a restaurant or a patient in a nursing home or hospital, your safety rights deserved to be honored. Personal injury protects you from distracted drivers, abusive nursing home workers, defective products and a number of other potentially harmful incidents, ensuring that you receive the compensation deserved.
A relevant legal term to personal injury cases, negligence simply means that a person did not act in a reasonable or responsible manner and, in doing so, caused you injury. The person who is negligent has acted in a way the needlessly endangers those around him or her, and when that negligence leads to an injury, a personal injury lawsuit usually forms.
Products and manufacturers can also injure you as well. Brakes on a brand new car are expected to work properly, but when a manufacturer defect leads to shoddy brakes, the buyer may have a case against the manufacturer for creating a product that causes harm when used for its intended purposes. The same type of case can also be brought against medicines that cause serious side effects that were never disclosed.
There are two types of injuries – economic and noneconomic. Economic damages are simply number-based damages. For example, if an auto accident puts you out of work for a month, then you can calculate how much you would have made by looking at past pay stubs and adding up the total. Medical bills can also easily be added to that total. In short, monetary damages can be easily proven with a few records and a calculator.
Noneconomic damages are a little more difficult. These types of damages involve psychological damage and pain – something you cannot always put a price tag on. For example, if that same auto accident results in a severe scar that stretches across the plaintiff’s face, he or she can sure for pain and suffering brought on by the scar. The plaintiff may deal with stares and even laughter in public and feel uncomfortable going out.
It’s hard to put a price on one’s confidence, so that’s where pain and suffering gets difficult. In most cases, it will be up to the jury to decide how much should be awarded.
When a person acts negligently and causes the death of another person, a wrongful death claim can be filed by a surviving family member of the deceased. Spouses, children (biological, stepchildren and adopted), parents, brothers, sisters, and others who were financially dependent on the deceased can bring a wrongful death claim forward.
Surviving members can claim for:
- Solace, sorrow, and mental anguish
- Expected loss of income
- Expenses such as funeral costs, past medical bills, treatments, and other
These cases can help families who have just lost their primary financial contributor pay.
If you’re considering filing a personal injury lawsuit, then your first step should be to contact a Charleston WV personal injury lawyer. Because personal injury is such a wide area of law, there are a lot of intricacies that you may be unaware of so it’s best to talk out your case before you decide to file anything or move forward.
Your lawyer will sit down with you and listen to what happened. If he or she thinks you have a claim, your lawyer will help you go through the steps to file a claim, gather evidence, procure expert testimony, and represent you in court.
Phone:
(304) 344-5683
