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Personal Injury Lawyer San Diego, Divorce Lawyer, Family Law Attorney, and Mediation Services
Attorneys
Fees
The fees and expenses charged by an attorney should be
reasonable from an objective point of view. The fees should be
tied to specific services rendered, time invested, and level of
expertise. Provided a client pays a contingent fee to a lawyer
only if the lawyer handles the case successfully, lawyers and
clients use this arrangement only in cases where money is being
claimed, most often in cases involving personal injury or
worker’s compensation. In a contingency arrangement the lawyer
agrees to accept a fixed percentage of the recovery, which is
the amount finally paid to the client. If you win the case, the
lawyer’s fee comes out of the money awarded to you. If you lose,
neither you nor the lawyer will get any money; and you will not
be required to pay your attorney for the work done on the case.
By entering into a contingent-fee agreement, both you and your
lawyer expect to collect some unknown amount of money. Because
many personal-injury actions involve considerable and often
complicated investigations and work by a lawyer, this may be
less expensive than paying an hourly rate.
Automobile Accident
If you’ve been injured in an automobile accident which was the
other driver’s fault or if you were a passenger in a vehicle and
suffered injuries as a result of the negligence of the driver,
you have a claim against that driver’s automobile insurance
company for compensation for your losses. Your losses will
include your medical expenses, any lost wages due to your
injuries, emotional and physical pain and suffering, and
permanent injury. In order to protect your claim, you should
seek immediate medical attention either at the emergency room or
with your family doctor as soon as possible following the
injury. Depending on the circumstances and the extent of your
injury, you should also let your employer know why you’re not
able to work and obtain a doctor’s note for your absence. The
other driver may be responsible to reimburse you for these
expenses when the case settles.
Some insurance companies will try to convince you not to hire an
attorney by promising to pay your medical expenses and lost
wages. The insurance adjustor will assure you that he or she
will negotiate a fair settlement of your claim. Usually you have
to jump through so many hoops to obtain these benefits that
you’ll decide you need an attorney anyway. We do not recommend
that you deal with an experienced claims adjustor from the other
party’s insurance company without the benefit of your own
attorney. Certainly you should not give a recorded or written
statement to anyone without speaking to an attorney first.
Choosing an attorney to handle your claim responsibly and
effectively is the most important decision you will have to make
following an accident. Remember retaining an attorney to file an
accident claim does not mean that you are filing a lawsuit
against the other driver. The vast majority of insurance claims
are settled before a lawsuit has to be filed.
Motorcycle Accidents
Every day motorcyclists are injured as a result of accidents on
our roads and highways. Despite certain prejudices that may
exist, motorcyclists are entitled to all of the same rights as
other motor vehicle operators when using our highways. If you’ve
received personal injuries in a motorcycle accident, you may
have a claim for compensation for your losses. These losses may
include your medical bills, any lost wages due to your injuries,
emotional and physical pain and suffering, and permanent injury.
You may also have a claim for the damage caused to your
motorcycle. As with any claim for personal injuries, you should
seek medical attention immediately, either at a hospital
emergency room, with your family doctor, or at a walk-in medical
center. If your injuries prevent you from returning to work, you
should let your employer know why you’re not able to return to
work and obtain a doctor’s note explaining your absence.
After obtaining any emergency medical treatment that you might
need, it is in your best interests to contact an attorney as
soon as possible. Do not give a recorded or written statement to
anyone without speaking to an attorney first. He or she will
thoroughly investigate your claim and obtain photographs of the
accident scene and property damage as well as statements from
any witnesses while this evidence is still readily available. A
motorcyclist’s claim for personal injuries often raises
questions of who was actually at fault. Did the motorcyclist
have the right of way? Had the motorcyclist established his or
her use of the lane before the accident occurred? What were the
weather and lighting conditions like on the day the accident
occurred? Were the vehicle’s headlights on? How fast was each
vehicle traveling? If required, was the motorcyclist wearing a
helmet at the time the accident occurred? An experienced
personal injury attorney will properly address these issues and
will handle your case in a professional and aggressive manner,
keeping you informed of progress along the way.
Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice is negligence committed by a professional
healthcare provider. A doctor, nurse, dentist, technician,
hospital, or hospital worker whose performance of duties departs
from a standard of practice of those with similar with training
or experience, resulting in harm to a patient or patients. In
order to file a lawsuit against a physician or healthcare
provider, it is necessary to have a permanent, significant
injury and be able to present evidence from a medical expert
that malpractice was, in fact, committed. Some states have
passed laws capping damage awards, limiting attorneys fees, and
shortening the time period in which plaintiffs can bring
malpractice suits.
Talk to an attorney if you think you have a medical malpractice
claim. Tell the attorney exactly what happened to you from the
first time you visited your doctor through your last contact
with him or her. What were the circumstances surrounding your
illness or injury? How did your doctor treat it? What did your
doctor tell you about your treatment? Did you follow your
doctor’s instructions? What happened to you? Answers to these
and other relevant questions become important if you think your
doctor may have committed malpractice.
In many states the statute of limitations allows a lawsuit to be
filed within two years from the date that the malpractice
occurred or the date when a person recently became aware that
malpractice had occurred. For an infant the statute of
limitations could run two years from the date of his or her 18th
birthday. In state- or county-owned medical facilities there may
be shorter time periods in which to bring a lawsuit. If there is
concern that there may have been medical malpractice, it is most
important that an attorney experienced in this legal specialty
be consulted as soon as possible.
Wrongful Death
When one person’s intentional act or negligent actions result in
the death of another a wrongful death has occurred. The spouse,
children, or parents of the deceased may bring lawsuits for
wrongful death against the wrong doers to compensate for the
loss of wages or other support they would have received had the
person lived. A plaintiff in a wrongful death suit does not have
to prove that he or she was completely dependant on the deceased
for support but only that the death results in a financial loss.
For example, a woman whose husband dies in an automobile
accident may have her own means of support, such as a job or
inheritance, but if she can show that her husband’s income was
put into a joint account and shared by them equally, she can
recover that loss.
To help determine the potential income, the court will hear
expert testimony from economists and statisticians. In addition,
some states – for example, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, and
Pennsylvania -- allow the surviving spouse and children of the
wrongful death victim to sue for compensatory damages for the
pain and suffering they experienced as the result of their loved
one’s death. Other states may allow the survivors to sue for the
pain and suffering of the deceased. Courts do not allow one
member of a family to sue another for wrongful death. In common
law a government is also immune from wrongful death suits,
although many states allow suits against the state government.
Employers can be sued for causing a wrongful death, but their
liability is generally limited by worker’s compensation laws.
Wrongful death suits are usually taken on a contingency basis;
that is, the lawyer will take the case for a percentage of the
damages awarded. But first the lawyer will determine whether the
defendant has assets or liability insurance that he can use to
pay any damages the court may order. Some people who are
responsible for wrongful deaths are judgment proof; that is,
they have no assets or insurance that can be used to pay
compensation.
Head Injury
Any time someone suffers a head injury, there is the possibility
that the effects of the injury will be much longer lasting than
is obvious at first. What seems like a simple concussion from
which you quickly recover can later turn into months or years of
recurring headaches and dizziness. This kind of recurring,
long-term head injury often does not appear in the original
diagnosis because its causes can only be detected by very
sophisticated and expensive testing. Insurance adjustors know
that head injuries can last a long time and can reoccur after
recovery seems to be complete.
A head injury not only increases how much the claim is worth,
often it also speeds up the negotiation process because an
adjustor wants to settle the claim before greater head-injury
related medical bills are incurred. If you suffered any kind of
head injury, check your medical records for any notation of the
injury -- concussion; a period of unconsciousness, however
brief; dizziness; disorientation; nausea. -- make specific
mention of it in your claim, even if other injuries seem more
serious; and if you have any long-term effects such as
continuing headaches or dizziness, report them to your doctor
and emphasize in your claim that you are still suffering from
the effects of your head injury.
Slip and Fall Accidents
An extremely common kind of accident is slipping on wet or
otherwise slippery floors, stairs, or ground, or tripping over
something on the floor or on the ground. It is a normal part of
living for things to fall or to drip on the floor or on the
ground; and something put on the ground, a drainage grate, for
example, serve a useful purpose being there. Therefore, the
owner or occupant of property cannot always be help responsible
for immediately picking up or cleaning every slippery substance
on a floor; nor is the property owner always responsible for
someone slipping or tripping on something which an ordinary
person should expect to find there or should see and avoid. We
all have an obligation to watch where we’re going.
There is no precise way to determine when an owner or occupant
of property is legally responsible for something on which you
slip or trip. Each case turns on whether the owner acted
carefully so that slipping or tripping was not likely to happen
and whether the person who fell was careless in not seeing or
avoiding the thing he or she fell on. To be legally responsible
for the injuries you suffer from slipping or tripping and
falling, the owner of the premises or the owner’s employee must
have caused the slippery item or item which caused the fall to
be underfoot and or must have known about the situation and done
nothing about it or should have known the slippery or dangerous
material was on the floor, stair, or ground because a reasonable
person taking care of the property would have discovered and
removed or repaired such a thing.
The third situation is the most common, but it’s also less clear
cut than the first two because of those pesky words “should have
known.” Liability in these cases is determined by common sense.
The law determines whether the owner or occupant of property was
careful by deciding if the steps the owner or occupant took to
keep the property safe were reasonable. People who work at, live
on, and visit property drop and spill things from time to time;
and they do not always pick up after themselves; and floors
become cracked, torn, or worn and slippery; and ground can
become loose, broken, or unusually slippery.
A person who is responsible for property must make some regular
effort to check the walking safety of the premises, introduce
some repair and cleanup with safety in mind. On the other hand,
the law does not require a premises owner to stand by round the
clock to repair or cleanup instantly anything that is broken,
dropped, or spilled. The law concentrates on the reasonableness
of cleanup and repair efforts. Someone who makes regular and
thorough efforts to keep property safe and clean is less likely
to be found liable than an owner who completely neglects the
premises; but usually accident claims arise when the matter of
repair or cleanup is not very clear. As a result, you can almost
always argue that the owner was not careful enough. The very
fact that you tripped or slipped shows that the owner could have
been more reasonable than he or she was.
If you have slipped or tripped over something and fallen, there
are some initial questions you can ask to determine whether the
property owner may be liable. If you tripped over a torn,
broken, or bulging area of carpet, floor, or ground, or slipped
on a wet or loose area, had the danger spot been there long
enough so that the owner should have known about it? If you
tripped over or slipped on an object someone had placed or left
on the floor or ground, was there a legitimate reason for the
object to be there? If there once had been a good reason for the
object to be there but that reason no longer exists, could the
object have been removed or covered or otherwise made safe? Was
there a safer place the object could have been located or placed
in a safer manner without much great inconvenience or expense to
the property owner or operator? Could a simple barrier have been
created or warning given to prevent people from slipping or
tripping: and did insufficient or broken lighting contribute to
the accident?
Broken Bones
If x-rays show that any bone mass suffered even a minor break,
including a chip or crack, the numbers in your case will
immediately move higher. Of course insurance adjustors are not
robots who simply see broken bone and then automatically raise
the damage formula. They do distinguish between less and more
serious breaks. If the break is a fine crack in a tiny bone, for
example, and does not require any treatment or affect the way
you go about your daily life, the broken bone will not raise the
damages formula as much as a more substantial, life-disrupting
break which may have permanent consequences. As with all other
injuries, the more serious you can show the break to be, the
higher you move up the compensation ladder.
Joint Injuries
Any time you suffer an injury to a joint, there is the
possibility of future arthritic problems in that joint. When a
joint is injured, blood usually collects there and eventually
calcifies, creating a hard and rough surface in the joint which
can later -- often not until years later -- cause pain and
difficulty in movement. In your medical records, however,
doctors do not normally mention such potential arthritic changes
because it is not usually possible to predict whether such
changes will later prove troublesome. If you suffer a joint
injury, ask your doctor whether future arthritic change is a
possibility. If the doctor makes a note of the possibility in
your medical record, it will give you more ammunition in your
claim for damages. Whether or not the possibility of arthritic
change appears in your medical record, make sure to specifically
mention this possibility in your claim for damages to the
insurance company. Such a reminder helps make the insurance
adjustor take your injury more seriously and may also help by
showing the adjustor that you are organized and have done your
medical homework.
Back Injury
Movement or displacement of a spinal disk or of the space
between vertebra sounds more serious than a strained neck or
back, and insurance adjustors often respond with higher
compensation for such specific descriptions of back or neck
injuries than to a general strained back description, even if
it’s exactly the same injury. Emergency rooms and orthopedists
usually take x-rays of an area of the spine when an injured
person complains of pain. Those x-rays may reveal some slight
abnormality either in a disc or in the space between vertebra
which will be described by reference to the number of the
vertebra in question, such slight narrowing in L4, L5 spacing or
narrowing of L5, S1. If you find any mention in your medical
records of such abnormality in a numbered vertebra, repeat that
diagnosis word for word as a way of demonstrating the
seriousness of your injury, regardless of how much or how little
treatment you received.
Intentional Torts
In order to have a valid claim, you must first have suffered an
injury to your person or property. Second, your injury must be
the result of someone else’s fault. It is not always necessary
to have a physical injury to bring a personal injury lawsuit.
Suits may be based on a variety of non-physical losses and
harms. In the intentional tort of assault, for example, you do
not need to show that a person’s action caused you actual
physical harm but only that it caused an expectation that some
harm would come to you. You also may have an action if someone
has attacked your reputation, invaded your privacy, or
negligently or intentionally inflicted emotional distress upon
you. If you believe you have a claim, your should seek legal
advice as soon as possible.
Damages
If you win a case, a judge or jury awards you money known as
“damages” for your injuries. That amount can include
compensation for such expenses as medical bills and lost wages,
as well as compensation for future wage losses. It can also
compensate you for physical pain and suffering. In addition, you
may receive damages for any physical disfigurement or disability
that resulted from your injury. The money is intended to restore
your loss. It’s not considered as income and is not taxable as
income by the federal government or the state.
Note that an award of damages does not necessarily translate
into hard cash. You may have to take further legal steps to
actually collect the money. If a defendant against whom you have
won a judgment does not pay it or has no insurance, collection
proceedings can be initiated. These proceedings vary from state
to state. In some states, for example, if the defendant owns
property, you may be able to foreclose on it. In others, wage
garnishment may be an option. Ask your attorney for your state’s
collections policies and options.
There is no rule to go by in deciding whether a particular
settlement offer is enough. Some people want to get as much as
they possibly can out of a claim no matter how long it takes and
are willing to argue and bargain, and other people want just to
get a minimum amount of money as quickly as possible. Most
people fall somewhere in between. Deciding when a settlement
offer is acceptable depends completely on your attitude toward
the accident and your injuries, on your tolerance for the claims
process, and on your judgment concerning whether more bargaining
is likely to produce a higher offer. Once you are within a
certain range that you know is reasonable, how much is enough is
completely up to you. Your attorney can be of assistance to you
in making this judgment.
