Personal injury law covers several types of cases, including car and truck accidents, as well as product liability and medical malpractice. All four of these types of personal injury law cases are considered high-profile cases, as stories about these types of personal injury cases appear regularly on the nightly news and your favorite online news source. However, slip and fall incidents can be just as serious as any of the other types of personal injury cases. The National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI) recently released a study showing that slip and fall incidents result in more than one million emergency room visits each year in the United States.
Injuries sustained as the result of a slip and fall incident range from minor cuts and bruises to a compound fracture of the wrist. When we slip and start to fall, the instinctive reaction is to use one or both arms to brace for the impact delivered by the fall. This makes one or both wrists highly vulnerable to sustaining some type of fracture. Although a compound fracture represents a serious injury with potentially severe health consequences, it is just one type of serious injury that you can sustain from a slip and fall. Other types of serious injuries that result from a slip and fall include whiplash, brain trauma, and spinal cord damage.
How Does Personal Injury Law Benefit a Slip and Fall Victim?
Personal injury law protects victims of slip and fall incidents by giving them several rights that help them recover financial losses.
You Have the Right to File an Insurance Claim
When you meet with a personal injury attorney for a free case evaluation, your lawyer explains the process for filing an insurance claim. Without legal representation, the insurance company that you have to deal with might try to take advantage of you.
Filing a persuasive insurance claim starts by gathering and organizing physical evidence, such as photos of the slip and fall scene, as well as footage captured by a venue’s security cameras. Witness accounts also play a pivotal role in filing an insurance claim. Before you file the claim form, your personal injury attorney reviews it to ensure you have completed every section with accurate information. Your lawyer also closely monitors the claim to ensure it processes in a timely manner.
You Have the Right to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit
Filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages requires more preparation than the preparation required for filing an insurance claim. Your personal injury attorney must prove another party committed one or more acts of negligence. Proving negligence requires your lawyer to demonstrate the presence of four elements, starting with the element called duty of care. The venue where you slipped and fell owed you a duty of care to prevent you from sustaining one or more injuries.
The second element of proving negligence involves showing another party violated the duty of care doctrine. Then, your attorney presents evidence that you sustained injuries as the result of a slip and fall that caused financial losses.
You Have the Right to Seek Compensation
The primary goal of filing a personal injury lawsuit is to win a favorable legal judgment in the form of receiving compensation. You have the right to seek economic damages, which represent the tangible costs associated with the slip and fall incident, such as lost wages, medical bills, and property damage. Non-economic damages do not come with a price tag, but they can be as financially draining as economic damages. After a slip and fall, you might develop symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) anytime that you walk into a similar venue to the one where you slipped and fell.
Punitive damages do not cover financial losses. Instead, a judge awards punitive damages to punish a plaintiff for committing one or more acts of negligence.
You Have the Right to Discovery
One lesser-known benefit of personal injury law concerns your right to gain access to the physical evidence and witness statements acquired by the other party. The discovery phase of the litigation process grants both sides the opportunity to share information, which helps both parties determine whether taking the case to trial is worth the time and money. During the discovery phase of the litigation process, both parties can try to negotiate a settlement that avoids a costly and time-consuming trial.
