The fact patterns that support personal injury cases can be as simple as a rear-end car accident. Or they can be as complicated as a multi-defendant products liability case. But in all personal injury cases, there are three main factors: liability, damages, and causation.
LIABILITY
Working out who is at fault for an injury is the first step of deciding if you have a good case. In a car accident case, sometimes the police will have already made a decision about who they think is responsible, but sometimes the police will cop out and just ticket everyone. In Colorado, the general rule is that if a person hits someone else from behind, the person in the rear is responsible. That’s not always the case, but it usually is. In non-car-accident cases, working out who is to blame can be harder. It often involves looking at public records to find property owners or hiring expert witnesses to determine whether a product was unreasonably dangerous. Because of this difficulty, if you’ve been injured, it is usually a good idea to hire a personal injury lawyer Fort Collins, CO trusts to help you work out who is to blame for your injuries.
DAMAGES
This is the unfortunate thing about personal injury cases: the worse you’re hurt, the better your case is. That’s because in a personal injury case, you can recover from the person who injured you the amount of money it would take to put you in the same position you would have been in without the crash. That means they have to pay your medical bills, your lost income, and any other expenses you’ve incurred. In addition, the person who hurt you should pay you for the pain you have had to go through in recovering from your injuries. Of course, no one in their right mind would voluntarily be injured just for money, so the injured person is never fully compensated. But that is still what we attempt to do in personal injury cases.
CAUSATION
Causation is often the hardest part of a personal injury case to prove. This is because most people have had injuries or soreness of some description before a an accident that caused their injuries. Because of this, insurance companies will often try to claim that your injuries pre-existed the accident. Even if you weren’t hurt before an accident, the insurance company might instead say that the accident wasn’t severe enough to cause your injuries. These causation issues are tricky, and they require a careful analysis of the facts of your case and your medical records to navigate. Personal injury lawyers who are experienced in these issues can help you out.
So there you go: the three major issues in personal injury cases explained. Contact me at the link below if you want more information.
Thanks to our friend and blog author, Sam Cannon of Cannon Hadfield, LLC for his insight into personal injury cases.
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