If you or a loved one has been hurt, you may be confused about whether to file a claim for damages or go to court.

Even while it’s not always possible to tell from the get-go which way a personal injury case will go, there are a few things an experienced lawyer at Groth & Associates will watch out for.

Personal Injury Claims

Experiencing personal injury as the result of someone else’s negligence may leave you wondering if you should file a lawsuit. Although every personal injury case is unique and factually particular, there are three main things you need to establish in order to get compensated financially.

  • That the person or organization responsible for your injury was careless. The legal definition of “negligence” is “the failure to exercise reasonable care.”
  • You can directly attribute your alleged bodily injury to the defendant’s recklessness. The goal is to establish a causal link between the injuries and the incident in question. There are a wide variety of situations in which this can only be done by a trained professional.
  • Ill-advised actions resulted in a certain set of injuries. Unfortunately, the law usually gives you little redress even if someone was reckless but did not actually do any damage.

The next stage, after proving that you are entitled to compensation due to an accident, is to try to settle the case amicably. In many cases, this necessitates the participation of all relevant insurance providers. Most cases of personal injury are settled out of court before a lawsuit is even filed. Of course, there will always be cases in which litigation is required because a settlement just cannot be reached.

Bringing a lawsuit for bodily harm

It’s natural to question if you need to sue the person or company responsible for your injuries after they’ve happened. Simply said, that’s not always the case. The vast majority of instances of personal injury do not lead to a lawsuit being filed. Litigation should be avoided until absolutely necessary due to the high cost and lengthy duration of court proceedings. However, despite our best intentions, circumstances will arise that call for a more forceful response. An irresponsible party can refuse to reply to settlement demands, act unreasonably, or refuse to accept responsibility if an attempt at communication leads to the settlement being sought. There may also be internal disputes among many parties about the fault.