After an injury, you could be left with medical expenses, lost wages, and other damages that could put a burden on your life. Our attorneys fight to see these damages paid by the parties responsible for your injuries and the insurance companies that work with them.
When you work with our attorneys, we can investigate what happened, find the various parties and witnesses we need to speak to, and file claims for your damages. Every step of the way, we can represent you in negotiations, hearings, and trials.
Contact our personal injury lawyers at The Reiff Law Firm by calling (215) 709-6940 for a free case assessment.
Determining Who is at Fault for Injury Cases in Broomall, PA
When you get injured, it can be difficult to determine, at first, who was responsible for your accident. In various situations, the person or company you need to sue might not be present at the scene of the accident, but they can nonetheless be held liable at the end of the day.
When the defendant is present, you can often tell they are responsible. In cases like these, we see assailants sued for assault and battery, and the other driver in a car crash sued for the accident.
In some cases, a company or individual who is not present can still be liable because the accident happened on their property or because of a danger they created. For example, if a property owner failed to shovel their sidewalk and you slipped and fell, that would make it their fault even if they were inside or out for the day. A company can also be held liable this way for accidents in a store, for example. Other companies might be liable because they produced a dangerous or defective product, like dangerous medication, auto parts, power tools, or appliances.
Many injury cases that our personal injury lawyers deal with involve questions of how fault is divided among multiple parties. For example, truck accidents often involve a driver who was present in the truck that hit you and the company they work for, potentially making them share liability (though employers can often be made to pay for an employee’s on-the-job negligence, too). Car crashes can also involve multiple drivers whose mistakes and violations contributed to harm, and parsing out each driver’s share of fault will be part of our work on your case.
What Do You Need to Prove a Personal Injury Case in Broomall, PA?
When you file a personal injury case, you need to prove four elements of the case with sufficient evidence.
Elements
An injury case is normally based on a claim that the defendant was “negligent.” This means you need to show that they had a legal duty they owed you, but that they violated that duty (a “breach”), and that the breach was what caused your injuries. As an example of these three elements, a driver has to obey traffic laws, and running a red light might be what caused your crash. In other cases, the duty is based on what is reasonable, such as what medical care a doctor needs to reasonably provide a patient, given the signs and symptoms they observe. If they failed to do so, and that caused you harm, you can sue them.
The final element is damages: you must have actually suffered harm in order to sue for it. Even if the defendant violated a duty and caused an accident, if there were no injuries, it will be hard to file a personal injury case. However, keep in mind that mental and emotional harm also qualify for damages.
Evidence
You need evidence to prove your case, or else the judge and jury will be forced to throw out the case or rule against you. Evidence comes in many forms, including witness testimony, records, photos, and actual objects.
The testimony in your case often comes from eyewitnesses, including yourself. Your testimony will often lay the foundation of the case, and we will fill in the gaps in your memory or consciousness with other evidence.
Photos, videos, records, and other evidence can corroborate what you say and show that you are telling the truth. Even something as simple as photos of the scene of a car crash or slip and fall can show that you remembered the setup correctly and therefore might have remembered everything else correctly, too.
Sometimes we need experts to testify even if they were not eyewitnesses. Their specialized knowledge and experience can help explain breaches and injuries in anything from medical malpractice cases to product defect cases.
Videos and photos can also help flesh out the story and show the jury what happened. Lastly, records, bills, and financial statements will be vital when showing your damages.
Burden of Proof
We have said that you need to prove these elements and provide enough evidence to do so, but what is considered “enough”? Judges and juries need to see evidence that proves your case “by a preponderance of the evidence.” This means you need to convince the jury that it is more likely than not that your claim is the truth.
Juries do not need to be 99% on your side, but rather something closer to 51%. This is much lower than the criminal burden of proof known as the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. This often allows civil injury lawsuits to succeed where criminal cases for assault or even murder might have failed, allowing victims of assault or families of wrongful death victims to sue separately from a criminal case.
Damages for Injury Victims in Broomall, PA
Victims of injuries can claim any economic or non-economic damages that we can link back to the accident. This includes things like hospital bills, lost wages from missed work, rehabilitation and therapy bills, pain and suffering, and other damages.
Call Our Broomall, PA Personal Injury Attorneys Today
Call our personal injury attorneys at The Reiff Law Firm today at (215) 709-6940 for a free review of your case.
