What Is Personal Injury Law?
Personal injury law deals with disputes that arise when one party is legally responsible for another person’s harm from an accident. In general, if someone was negligent, and that negligence caused someone else’s injuries, the negligent person may be held legally responsible for paying compensation.
Negligence is an important legal concept that your lawyer will discuss with you in detail, but here is a shorthand version of what you need to know.
In a personal injury case, for the injured victim to prove that the other party was negligent, the injured victim must prove the following:
- The defendant had a legal responsibility to ensure the plaintiff’s safety. This is usually referred to as a “duty of care.”
- The defendant failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the plaintiff’s safety.
- The plaintiff suffered injuries.
- The plaintiff’s injuries a direct result of the defendant’s failure to uphold their duty of care to ensure the plaintiff’s safety.
This may sound complicated, but a simple example can help illuminate these four factors. Consider a scenario in which a grocery store employee knocks over a bottle of olive oil, which breaks on the floor. The employee doesn’t adequately clean it up and does not place any signs telling customers to avoid the area. You slip in the oil, fall, and break your arm.
The grocery store has a legal duty to take the reasonable step of adequately cleaning up a slippery floor or warning customers not to walk down that aisle to ensure safety. So, when you slipped and broke your arm, your injury was a direct result of the grocery store’s negligence.
Types of Personal Injury Cases We Take In Woodstock
At Geiger Legal Group, LLC, our Woodstock personal injury attorneys are highly skilled, experienced, and ready to take on a variety of personal injury claims.
The following are some of the most common personal injury cases we handle:
This is not an exhaustive list of all the personal injury cases we take on. If you have suffered an injury that you believe was the result of another person’s carelessness, get a free consultation and tell us about your situation.
Compensation Available in a Woodstock, GA Personal Injury Claim
When victims are injured in a personal injury accident, there are several types of compensation they may be to claim, including;
- Medical bills, including past bills and anticipated future expenses
- Lost wages
- Lost earning capacity
- Property damages
Your skilled personal injury lawyer will help you better understand the types of compensation as well as the full amount of compensation you might be owed, based on your circumstances. Calculating a dollar figure for losses like medical bills and lost wages is usually fairly straightforward. However, determining compensation for pain and suffering and mental anguish can be more complicated, as these factors are subjective but every bit as real and every bit as compensable.
You should contact a personal injury lawyer to get a better idea of how much compensation for pain and suffering you may be able to receive.
To help the insurance adjuster or jury understand the severity of your injury, we recommend starting a journal where you document the ways your injury affects your daily life. Write down whenever you experience pain, with details like time and pain severity. Write down whenever your injury prevents you from working, carrying out daily tasks like cleaning and childcare, or enjoying life the way you did before you were hurt.
Also document any mental trauma that your accident has caused. Do you have nightmares? Do you experience panic attacks or anxiety? Try to describe these feelings in your journal. This kind of daily log can go a long way in communicating the extent of your injuries to a court.
We’ll work with your medical providers to obtain your medical records documenting the extent of your injuries and treatment. It’s crucial to seek medical attention as soon as possible after an accident. For one, prompt medical care is in the best interest of your health.
Many accident victims experience shock and adrenaline in the immediate aftermath of an accident, which can prevent them from feeling the pain of their injuries. Additionally, some serious injuries such as head trauma, internal bleeding, and nerve damage do not immediately present symptoms.
Catching and treating injuries as soon as possible is critical for healing and recovering. Additionally, prompt medical care is important for your legal claim for compensation. If you delay medical care, the defendant may argue that your condition is not as severe as you claim, that you worsened your condition by delaying care, or that it cannot be definitely proved that the accident in question caused your injury.
How Can a Personal Injury Lawyer in Woodstock, GA Help Your Case?
In addition to physical pain, you may be facing significant financial strain and mental anguish. Working to understand your legal rights and path to compensation may seem overwhelming and impossible.
Let a skilled, experienced personal injury lawyer in Woodstock, GA shoulder the legal burden of your accident while you rest and recover. Our lawyers are ready to guide you throughout the entire legal process, including handling paperwork, evidence collection, and communication with insurance adjusters and the courts.
Our Woodstock, GA personal injury attorneys will have a good idea of the amount of compensation you can reasonably expect in your case, and can advise you on whether to take a settlement or to keep negotiating.
Our Woodstock personal injury attorneys prepare all cases as though they were going to trial. This may include collecting evidence, working with expert witnesses, and developing a compelling legal strategy. Even if you don’t end up in court, a well-prepared case will give your attorney more strength to negotiate for a higher settlement. In the event that the defendant refuses to offer a fair settlement, you will be ready to go to court.
You should always consult a personal injury lawyer before accepting a settlement or signing any legal documents. Too many injured people take the first settlement they are offered, especially when they are struggling with medical bills and worry that the first settlement offer may be the best they get.
If you accept a settlement, it is almost always impossible to undo, even if you later discover you could have received more compensation.
Statute of Limitations in Woodstock Personal Injury Cases
Georgia state law sets a statute of limitations – or deadline – for bringing personal injury claims. This means that you have a limited amount of time after the date of your injury to file a personal injury lawsuit.
In Georgia, you have two years to file a lawsuit in a personal injury case. You should contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible to ensure that your case is ready to go before the statute of limitations passes, and you are unable to file a lawsuit.
Why Geiger Legal Group, LLC Should Be Your First Call When You’re Injured in North Georgia
When faced with a personal injury claim, it is never a good idea to try to handle it alone. Your chances of recovering the compensation you need and deserve are greatly increased when you hire a skilled Alpharetta personal injury lawyer.
The Woodstock personal injury attorneys at Geiger Legal Group, LLC have the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to handle all the complicated legal matters involved with your personal injury claim.
We can help with many important tasks in a personal injury claim, including for example:
- Explaining all your legal rights. Our Woodstock personal injury attorneys can evaluate your case and help you understand your legal options. We can collect all the details about your case to calculate how much money you could be entitled to for your injuries. Our attorneys will be there to answer all of your questions along the way.
- Proving your case. Our experienced personal injury lawyers are prepared to conduct a thorough investigation to gather all the details about your accident. We can identify all the liable parties and all of the potential sources of insurance coverage. We can collect and analyze medical records to determine the extent of the injuries you sustained. If necessary, our attorneys can bring in experts who can testify in support of your case.
- Fighting for you. Our Woodstock attorneys will be ready to aggressively negotiate with the other party’s insurance company to make sure your injury claim is taken seriously. Insurance companies will do everything they can to avoid paying fair settlements. If the insurer simply refuses to offer you a fair settlement, our skilled trial lawyers will be ready to file a lawsuit on your behalf and fight for fair compensation in court.
Talk to Our Personal Injury Lawyers in Woodstock, Georgia for Free
If you have suffered an accident caused by someone else’s carelessness, you should contact our family-run personal injury law firm in Woodstock, Georgia, today. We are ready to review your situation and talk about how you can access compensation. Our team of highly-skilled, experienced legal professionals is passionate about advocating for our injured clients and ready to get started on your case.
At Geiger Legal Group, LLC, you’re not just a case number to us. You’re an injured person who needs our help. Don’t wait. Call us today or reach out online for a free consultation.
