A slip and fall accident can cause one or more serious injuries, such as brain trauma, a fractured wrist, and spinal cord damage. Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney can help provide legal support in many ways, including gathering physical evidence, interviewing witnesses, and ensuring you file a persuasive civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.
When you meet with one of our personal injury lawyers, you can expect the attorney to encourage you to act with a sense of urgency for several reasons.
Statute of Limitations
Each state has established a deadline for filing personal injury lawsuits. Most states have set the statute of limitations between two and four years, while a few states grant as long as six years and as short as one year to take legal action. If you fail to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitations, you can expect the court clerk processing your lawsuit to remove it from the judicial docket.
The sooner you hire a slip and fall attorney, the more likely that you will file a civil lawsuit before the deadline set by the state where you live.
Witness Accounts
Witness accounts of a slip and fall accident provide legal support for the evidence gathered at the scene of a personal injury incident. For example, a fellow shopper at a grocery store can verify the footage captured by a store security camera. However, your slip and fall attorney should interview every witness as close to the date of the slip and fall accident as possible. Witnesses tend to provide less reliable versions of events the longer they wait to meet with a slip and fall lawyer.
Recover Compensation
Unless you arrange a payment plan with a debtor that allows the debtor to take out expenses from an approved insurance claim and/or a favorable legal judgment, you have the financial obligation to pay medical expenses and other types of economic damages until you receive compensation. Since medical bills can quickly run into thousands of dollars, reaching a quick settlement with an insurance company prevents you from falling deep into a financial hole that might require the filing of bankruptcy documents.
Interact with Insurance Company
The insurance company that processes your claim wants you to submit the claim as quickly as possible after a slip and fall accident. Without the legal support of a personal injury attorney, the insurance company might take advantage of you by denying a valid claim or approving a claim that is valued well below what you deserve. Because the insurance company wants you to file a claim shortly after a slip and fall accident, you must act quickly when hiring an experienced personal injury lawyer to handle your case.
