Kennesaw Personal Injury Lawyer

Accidents happen, and they can be easy to get over or be a major disruption to your life. Some people might never fully recover physically or psychologically after a particularly bad accident. Whatever happened to you, the ones who caused the accident should be brought to justice. An attorney can help you file a personal injury case to get justice and fair financial compensation for everything you have gone through.

Personal injury claims cover a very broad range of accidents. You might be hurt in an accident at work, but a defective product you recently purchased, or in a car crash. All these accidents and many more may be grounds for a personal injury case. Damages in these claims also tend to vary. A lawyer can help you take stock of your economic losses as well as emotional or psychological injuries that might not cost money but should still be compensated. To prove your claims for damages, we need evidence. How and where we find evidence depends on the unique factors of your case.

Get in touch with our personal injury attorneys at Rice, Murtha & Psoras by calling (470) 287-3070 and get a free case review to get started.

Possible Personal Injury Cases Our Attorneys Can Help You with in Kennesaw

Personal injury cases tend to vary greatly from case to case, as all kinds of injuries and accidents may fall under the legal category of personal injury law. This is why finding a lawyer who knows how to handle cases like yours is crucial. Below are a few examples of personal injury claims handled by our legal team.

Workplace Accidents

Whether you work in an inherently dangerous environment or you spend every day in a quiet office, you might be at risk of serious injuries. For example, people who work with power tools or heavy machinery might be severely injured by faulty or damaged equipment. An office worker might be hurt in an elevator accident or a simple slip-and-fall in the hallway. Your accident does not need to be dramatic for you to have a valid legal claim. Many injured workers not only have to deal with painful injuries but also lose income because they cannot return to their jobs right away.

Faulty or Defective Products

When we buy something, we expect it to be safe for consumers and for necessary warnings to be plainly displayed on the packaging. Unfortunately, products sometimes leave the manufacturer damaged or defective, and the unlucky consumer gets hurt. Maybe you bought a household appliance that was wired incorrectly, causing an electrical fire that burned you. Maybe the new brakes you had installed in your car were faulty, and you were injured in a crash. Our personal injury lawyers will help you hold the manufacturer and possibly others in the chain of sale accountable for your injuries.

Auto Accidents

Speaking of car accidents, they are very common and happen so frequently that most of us probably have been in a crash or know someone who has. After a crash, you can take legal action against those responsible for covering the costs of medical care, vehicle repairs, and various other losses and injuries you experienced. Some accidents are very complicated, especially those involving multiple drivers, and it might be necessary to dissect the crash bit by bit to determine who is responsible.

Available Damages in Kennesaw Personal Injury Cases

Damages in personal injury cases may be relatively minor or quite considerable. Either way, injured plaintiffs deserve justice and fair compensation. Remember, your damages do not have to be severe to warrant legal action. They simply must be real and articulable.

Compensatory Damages

Compensatory damages may be awarded to put plaintiffs back in the same state or position they were in prior to their injuries, at least in a financial sense. This means that any money you spent as a direct result of the accident may be included in your damages claim and hopefully paid back to you.

Compensatory damages may cover economic and non-economic damages and injuries. Economic damages are the things that cost you money and can be measured in dollars and cents. Medical bills, property damage, and lost income if you cannot go back to work are common examples of economic damages.

Non-economic damages are a bit harder to measure as they are subjective and personal to each plaintiff. For example, emotional distress, psychological damage, physical pain, humiliation, reduced quality of life, and the loss of enjoyment of your life might be grounds for non-economic damages claims. Since these damages do not exactly come with a price tag, the jury decides how much they are worth. Generally, the more these damages impact your life, the more compensation they may be worth.

Punitive Damages

In less common cases, the court may award punitive damages to the plaintiff to punish the defendant for their egregious actions. Ordinary negligence is not enough to warrant punitive damages, and defendants must be shown to have acted in a downright shocking way.

According to O.C.G.A. § 51-12-5.1(b), punitive damages may only be awarded to plaintiffs who can prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant’s behavior in causing the accident demonstrated malice, willful misconduct, fraud, oppression, or wantonness. Alternatively, we must prove that the defendant acted with such a lack of care as to raise a presumption that they were consciously indifferent to the consequences of their actions.

According to subsection (g) of the statute on punitive damages in Georgia, most claims are limited to a maximum punitive damages award of $250,000. However, under subsection (e), there is no limit on punitive damages in personal injury cases involving product liability claims. Similarly, under subsection (f), there is no cap on punitive damages in cases where the defendant acted under the influence of drugs or alcohol, like in a drunk driving accident.