The chances of winning and recovering monetary compensation in a personal injury lawsuit vary greatly based on a variety of factors. Those factors include the jurisdiction where the personal injury lawsuit is pending, the facts and circumstances surrounding the lawsuit, the strength of your case (both in terms of fault and damages), and whether you have an experienced personal injury attorney in your jurisdiction representing you throughout the lawsuit.
Generally speaking, personal injury plaintiffs who have a lawyer representing them pre-suit up until the conclusion of the case fare far better than those who attempt to represent themselves in a personal injury case.
Having an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side in a case can be extremely helpful and can increase your chances of success. Specifically, a lawyer can negotiate with the insurance company on your behalf to work out a favorable settlement and avoid going to court. If that does not work, a lawyer can file a lawsuit against the at-fault person or entity on your behalf and continue working to negotiate a favorable settlement.
A lawyer can also assist you throughout the litigation process (such as with discovery and other processes that occur during litigation). If necessary, they can take your case to trial or pursue alternative dispute resolution (such as mediation or arbitration) in your personal injury case.
If an accident due to someone else’s carelessness, recklessness, or negligence left you injured, your best bet is to seek out the services of an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area. Once you retain legal counsel to represent you in a personal injury legal matter, they can start investigating your case right away, and if appropriate, file a claim or lawsuit on your behalf.
What Is a Personal Injury Case?
To further understand why a personal injury attorney is necessary in a personal injury lawsuit, you will want to know what a personal injury case is in the first place. A personal injury case arises when someone suffers an injury, usually in an accident that is caused by the negligence of another person.
Injuries sustained in an accident can include:
- Soft tissue contusions, muscular strains, and sprains
- Internal bleeding
- Traumatic brain and head injuries
- Broken bones and fractures
- Internal injuries, such as internal organ damage
- Untimely death, after which the decedent’s surviving loved ones can file a wrongful death claim
Under the laws of most jurisdictions, corporations are treated as “persons” under the law. When an injured accident victim goes to file a claim, it is usually with the at-fault person or entity’s insurance company. If the at-fault person’s attorney ends up filing a lawsuit, the lawsuit is usually filed directly against the at-fault person, even though the insurance company is usually the one who is pulling the strings and calling the shots.
In some personal injury cases (such as motor vehicle accident cases) where the at-fault person or entity did not have insurance (or did not have sufficient insurance), the accident victim could file a claim or lawsuit not only against the at-fault party but also against their own insurance company, via an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim.
In addition to motor vehicle accidents, other types of occurrences can lead to a personal injury lawsuit.
Those occurrences include:
- Premises accidents – Where an accident victim suffers an injury on someone else’s property, such as a slip-and-fall injury, when the premises are not properly maintained and where the property owner does not warn about or correct a known hazardous defect on the premises
- Pedestrians accidents – Where a motor vehicle collides with a pedestrian in a parking lot, parking garage, or in the roadway
- Bicycle and motorcycle accidents – Where a motor vehicle operator negligently causes their vehicle to collide with a bicycle or motorcycle and injures the operator and any passengers, usually due to the motor vehicle driver’s inattentiveness to the road or distracted driving
- Boating accidents – Where a boat owner or operator’s negligence leads to a passenger injury while onboard
- Product malfunctions – Where a product malfunctions due to negligent manufacturing or design, resulting in a serious injury to a consumer, such as a burn injury
To succeed in a personal injury claim or lawsuit, the plaintiff (the accident victim) has the burden of proving all of the legal elements in the case, including fault and damages. An experienced personal injury attorney in your area can review the circumstances of your accident with you and determine if you may have a viable claim. If so, your attorney can assist you with bringing a claim against the proper insurance company, and if necessary, filing a personal injury lawsuit against the person or persons who caused the accident.
When Is It Necessary to File a Lawsuit in a Personal Injury Case?
Before filing a lawsuit in a personal injury case, there are certain steps that a personal injury attorney can take on your behalf to facilitate a favorable settlement. Once your attorney has filed a claim in your case, usually with the adverse party’s insurance company, your lawyer can gather all of your medical records, medical bills, lost wage documentation, investigative reports (such as a police report), and other pertinent documentation, and submit a settlement demand package to the insurance company’s adjuster.
In addition to including all of this necessary documentation, your lawyer can prepare a settlement demand letter with a monetary demand for settlement on your behalf. The initial settlement demand amount usually depends upon various factors, including the cost of the medical treatment that you received for your injuries, the extent of your treatment, the extent of your permanency (if any), the amount you lost in earnings (if any), and the anticipated costs of any medical treatment you may need in the future.
If the insurance company accepts liability (or fault) in your case, the insurance company adjuster may make you an initial offer to settle. However, these initial offers to settle are extremely low in many instances and do not represent a reasonable or fair value for the case. Moreover, they are not usually sufficient to compensate the accident victim for everything that they had to endure as a result of the injuries sustained in the accident.
An experienced personal injury lawyer can be helpful when it comes time to negotiating with the adjuster to get to a fair and reasonable settlement in your case. These negotiations typically proceed by the personal injury lawyer gradually decreasing their monetary demand to settle the case and the insurance company adjuster gradually increasing the offer to settle the case.
Settlement negotiations may continue until the parties either settle the case or cannot agree on a final settlement. At that point, the personal injury lawyer can file a lawsuit against the at-fault person or entity in the state court system. Again, when it comes time to file the lawsuit, an experienced personal injury attorney can help you. A knowledgeable lawyer will be sure to name all potentially responsible parties as defendants in the lawsuit and file the personal injury lawsuit well within the applicable statute of limitations.
How Long Do You Have to File a Lawsuit in a Personal Injury Case? How Can a Lawyer Help?
Various jurisdictions throughout the country have different statutes of limitations in personal injury cases. The statute of limitations is the deadline by which you must file a personal injury lawsuit in a particular jurisdiction. In some jurisdictions, the statute of limitations may be as short as one year from the date of the accident or incident. In other jurisdictions, the statute of limitations could be four or five years from the date of the accident or incident.
In most situations, the statute of limitations is a hard and fast rule. Therefore, in almost every personal injury case, if you or your lawyer do not file a personal injury lawsuit within the designated deadline against all applicable parties, the court could wind up dismissing your case. If that happens, you will not be in a position to seek or recover monetary compensation for the injuries that you suffered in your accident.
Some jurisdictions do provide some very limited exceptions for filing a personal injury lawsuit beyond the statute of limitations filing deadline. For example, in some situations where the injured accident victim was a minor at the time of the accident, the statute of limitations may toll (extend) until the injured accident victim reaches adulthood (typically 18 years old).
Regardless of the jurisdiction where your personal injury case is pending, you should assume that the statute of limitations deadline is the latest date by which you must file your lawsuit against a particular party.
When it comes to filing a timely personal injury lawsuit, an experienced attorney can help you. First, your lawyer will file a lawsuit against all parties who are potentially responsible for your accident. Your lawyer can also file the lawsuit within the statute of limitations. By taking these actions, your lawyer increases the chances that you will succeed in your personal injury lawsuit and recover monetary compensation for the injuries that you suffered in your accident.
How a Lawyer Can Help You Satisfy Elements of Proof Required in a Personal Injury Lawsuit
In plaintiff personal injury lawsuits, the plaintiff (the injured party) has the burden of proof. Therefore, to be successful in recovering monetary compensation in your personal injury lawsuit, you must satisfy all of the legal elements of proof in your case.
First of all, in a personal injury lawsuit, the plaintiff needs to demonstrate that the defendant owed them a duty of reasonable care. For example, the owner of a store owes customers a duty to warn about or correct known hazards that exist on the premises. If the store owner or operator fails to warn about a known hazard and a store customer falls and injures themselves as a result, then the store owner or operator could be deemed negligent under the circumstances.
The accident victim must also show that the fall occurred because of the owner or operator’s negligence, that they suffered at least one injury, such as a bone fracture or back injury, and that the injury or injuries occurred because of the accident.
In many jurisdictions throughout the country, the accident victim needs to satisfy their legal burden by a preponderance of the evidence. This burden is much lower than the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard applicable to most criminal cases. To prove each legal element of the personal injury case by a preponderance of the evidence, the accident victim (through their attorney) must demonstrate that it is more likely than not that each element is true.
In some cases, the defendant in the lawsuit may stipulate one or more of the legal elements of the personal injury case. For example, in a car or truck accident case where the defendant driver was intoxicated or was clearly breaking the law in some other way, then the defendant’s attorney may stipulate fault. However, the accident victim would still need to prove the causation and damage elements of the personal injury case to recover monetary compensation.
An experienced personal injury lawyer in your area can help you prove the necessary legal elements in your lawsuit by:
- Hiring an investigator, such as an accident reconstructionist, to piece together how the accident happened and identify all individuals or entities who may have been fully or partially to blame
- Hiring a medical expert who can establish medical causation in the case (such as stating that the accident was a cause of your injury or that it aggravated a pre-existing injury)
- Introducing the necessary exhibits at a trial or alternative dispute resolution proceeding, including the police report, photographs depicting property damage or personal injuries, medical treatment records, medical bills, and lost wage documentation prepared by an employer or a healthcare provider (such as a document authorizing the accident victim to be off work or perform only “light duty” jobs for a specified time)
- Calling the necessary witnesses at a trial or alternative dispute resolution proceeding, such as an investigating police officer, independent eyewitness to the incident, or medical expert
- Advocating for you at trial by presenting a convincing opening statement, powerful closing argument, and compelling witness testimony at trial
Why Do You Have a Better Chance of Winning a Lawsuit With an Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer Handling Your Case?
Your chances of recovering monetary compensation in a personal injury lawsuit greatly improve by retaining an experienced personal injury lawyer to represent you throughout the entire lawsuit process. Your attorney can prepare and promptly file your lawsuit, as well as name in it all potentially responsible individuals and entities.
Once your lawyer files the lawsuit in the court system, they can then litigate the case on your behalf. As part of the litigation process, your attorney can engage the defendant(s) in the discovery process and, if necessary, take the defendant’s deposition to learn more about their version of the case.
While all of this is occurring, your lawyer can continue negotiating a favorable settlement offer with the defense attorney or the insurance company’s adjuster. Sometimes, after the parties complete some discovery (including depositions), the insurance company may be more willing to offer additional settlement money on the case.
When it comes to fielding an insurance company’s settlement offers after the filing of the lawsuit, an experienced attorney can help you decide whether it would be to your advantage to accept a pending offer, or in the alternative, take your case to trial or pursue an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) proceeding, such as mediation, binding arbitration, or non-binding arbitration.
If you decide to take your personal injury case to trial or ADR, an experienced personal injury lawyer in your area will zealously advocate for you during the proceeding and help you pursue the damages that you deserve. Regardless of whether the case resolves by way of settlement or litigation, your lawyer can assist you with wrapping your case up, including paying off any medical balances or liens with the proceeds of the case and issuing a final net check to you.
When to Take a Personal Injury Case to Trial or ADR and How an Experienced Lawyer Can Help
One of the most important ways that an experienced personal injury lawyer can help in your case is deciding whether to accept a pending settlement offer versus taking your case to trial or pursue ADR. Your lawyer will let you know the net amount of your settlement (the amount that you will put in your pocket once the initial award has covered all outstanding fees and expenses).
Your lawyer can also let you know whether a particular offer is a “good” offer or whether the offer is worth negotiating further. Finally, once the insurance company’s adjuster appears to be getting near the limits of their authority, your lawyer can let you know whether it’s a good idea to accept the offer or take the case to trial or ADR.
When it comes to jury trials arising from a personal injury lawsuit, there are always risks. The moment you let a jury begin deliberating on your case, you give up control of your case. In other words, it is then up to the jury to decide the outcome of all pending issues that are then in dispute. In some personal injury cases, where the adverse insurance company has already stipulated liability, the only disputed issue in the case may be the damages (the monetary value of the case). In that instance, it is up to the jury to decide what, if any, damages to award the plaintiff.
At a personal injury jury trial, you need an experienced attorney representing you both before and after your trial. Before trial, during the litigation stage of your personal injury case, your lawyer can retain one or more experts who can prepare a report or testify live at trial in support of your case.
In personal injury litigation, the most common type of expert is a medical expert. A doctor or other healthcare provider who treated you or participated in your care in some way could testify at trial and causally relate your injuries and medical treatment to the accident. In lieu of live medical testimony at trial by a healthcare provider, the parties may elect to simply introduce the relevant medical records and bills directly into evidence. The jury members will then review all of this documentation when they are deliberating on their verdict.
During a personal injury jury trial, your lawyer will advocate on your behalf and pursue the greatest amount of monetary compensation available in your case.
Some of the ways that an attorney can be helpful during a personal injury jury trial include:
- Assisting during the jury selection process in an attempt to assemble the fairest and most impartial jury possible
- Making a compelling opening statement that highlights the pertinent facts of the case, including the facts of the accident, the medical treatment (along with the pain and suffering) that you endured, and what you anticipate the evidence will show at trial
- Presenting compelling evidence (including both documentary evidence and witness testimony) necessary to prove the legal elements of your case
- Presenting a compelling closing argument that illustrates why you should win your case and why you can recover a certain amount of monetary compensation in your case.
Instead of taking a personal injury case to trial, the parties might pursue alternative dispute resolution, such as mediation or arbitration. During mediation, the parties typically retain a neutral third party, known as a mediator, to work with them in an attempt to settle the personal injury case. During a mediation proceeding, the mediator, who is usually a retired judge or a practicing attorney, meets with all of the parties to the case initially.
The mediation then proceeds with several breakout sessions in which the mediator meets with the parties and their attorneys individually. The mediator may talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the case with each party and facilitate settlement discussions. The parties will then relay settlement demands and offers through the mediator until the parties come to an agreement or ultimately reach an impasse. During a personal injury mediation, your lawyer will bring out all of the strengths of your case and highlight its value.
The parties might elect to take the case to binding or non-binding arbitration as an alternative to mediation. In a binding arbitration proceeding, for example, the arbitrator’s order is final and is not subject to appeal (as may be the case with a jury verdict at trial).
During an arbitration proceeding, the arbitrator (who is usually a retired judge or attorney and does not have a financial interest in the outcome of the case) will listen to all of the evidence that the attorneys present during the proceeding, including documentary evidence and witness testimony. The arbitrator will then decide what, if any, compensation to award the plaintiff.
Before the arbitration proceeding, the parties will agree upon parameters for a high number and a low number applied to the arbitrator’s decision. If the arbitrator’s number is lower than the parties’ agreed-upon low number, the plaintiff will automatically receive the agreed-upon low number. The same is true for the agreed-upon high amount. Before the arbitration takes place, the parties will agree upon all of the terms, including the high and low amounts, and will memorialize their understanding in a signed arbitration agreement.
Just like at a personal injury mediation proceeding, an experienced personal injury attorney can help at arbitration and dramatically increase your chances of receiving a favorable arbitration award. Before the arbitration occurs, your lawyer can help you decide on an appropriate high and low amount and craft a workable arbitration agreement. Your lawyer will also represent you at the actual arbitration proceeding, introduce evidence in support of your case, and work to obtain the best possible award from the arbitrator who is deciding your case.
What Types of Monetary Compensation Are Recoverable If You Win Your Personal Injury Lawsuit?
The primary goal of any personal injury lawsuit is to recover monetary compensation and damages for the injuries that you sustained in an accident that someone else caused. By filing your lawsuit promptly, litigating it effectively, and negotiating with the insurance company, your personal injury lawyer will increase the chances that you will be successful and recover the monetary compensation that you deserve.
An accident victim can recover monetary compensation and damages in a personal injury case by way of a settlement, trial, or alternative dispute resolution proceeding, such as through an arbitration award. Some lawyers will charge a higher contingency fee percentage if the case settles a trial or arbitration, as opposed to settling out of court. Moreover, some personal injury lawyers will increase their contingency fee percentage if they have to file a lawsuit in your case, as opposed to settling your case pre-suit.
Regardless of whether you receive monetary compensation by way of a settlement, jury trial, or arbitration proceeding, the goal in your case is for you to recover full, fair, and reasonable compensation for all of the injuries, inconvenience, pain, and suffering that you had to endure as a result of another person’s negligence. During your personal injury lawsuit, an experienced attorney in your jurisdiction will fight for your right to recover the compensation that you deserve and will do everything possible to advocate in your best interests.
When it comes to a personal injury lawsuit, there are various types of damages that you may be eligible to receive. First, you could recover monetary compensation for all of the medical treatment (past and future) that you had to undergo as a result of the accident and your injuries. In some cases, it may be necessary for a medical expert to causally connect your injuries and treatment to the accident. You may recover monetary compensation for your medical treatment when your health insurance paid for all or part of that treatment.
In addition to recovering medical compensation, you may be eligible to recover some or all of your lost wages. To recover your lost earnings, a healthcare provider will normally need to state in writing that you could not work as a result of your injuries. Moreover, you will need to show documentation from your employer that references the number of days or hours you missed, and your weekly or hourly wages. In addition to medical treatment and lost wage compensation, you can recover monetary compensation for other costs that you incurred out-of-pocket in your case.
You may also be eligible to recover compensation for all of the pain, suffering, and inconvenience that you had to endure as a result of the injuries you suffered in your accident. If you suffered mental distress or emotional anguish as a result of your injuries, you could recover compensation for that as well. Moreover, if you cannot participate in the activities you enjoyed before the accident, you could assert a legal claim for loss of enjoyment of life.
Similarly, if the accident rendered you incapacitated in some way and can’t use a body part, you could assert a loss of use claim. Finally, you could recover permanency damages if a healthcare provider stated in writing that you are currently suffering from a permanent injury or disability due to the accident.
Contact an experienced personal injury attorney in your area who will introduce the necessary evidence, including expert testimony, to pursue monetary compensation for everything that you endured as a result of your accident.
