Victims can suffer personal injuries at the hands of others in countless ways. When you are injured in an accident, you need a legal team with experience in a wide range of legal cases.
Our lawyers have been handling claims for various types of accidents for years. If you were injured in a car or truck accident, we can help you file an insurance claim or lawsuit and determine who should be held liable for your damages. We can also hold negligent property owners responsible for dangerous conditions that injured you in a slip and fall accident. If a dangerous product injures you, we can determine if the manufacturer or designer should be held responsible for allowing it onto the market. Most importantly, we can fight accusations that you contributed to your injuries.
Call Rice, Murtha & Psoras today at (803) 219-4906 to discuss your case with our Greenville, SC personal injury lawyers free of charge.
Vehicle Accident Claims a Car Accident Lawyer Can Help You with in Berea, SC
Vehicle accidents often result in serious and expensive injuries for victims in Berea. Whether someone is harmed in a car, by a commercial truck, or as a pedestrian, they have the right to pursue claims against those at fault for their injuries. Our personal injury lawyers are here to assist you with filing your lawsuit and collecting the necessary evidence to show how the negligent driver caused your accident and the resulting damages. Suppose multiple vehicles are involved in your accident, or a commercial truck driver injured you. In that case, we will likely be able to include multiple defendants in your claim, potentially increasing the compensation you recover.
Car Accidents
Car accidents are probably the most common reason our attorneys file claims on behalf of injury victims. Other drivers can act negligently in numerous ways. Some crash into others because they are speeding, running lights and stop signs, or texting on their phone. Others act truly recklessly when causing an accident, like driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs or driving far faster than the speed limit.
In any case, you should report the accident to law enforcement immediately after the crash and request emergency medical services. The police will investigate the crash and create a collision report, which will include the information they gather. The police report will contain basic details, like the drivers and vehicles involved and the injuries claimed, as well statements from eyewitnesses, if any were still present on the scene. Emergency medical services can document your damages further by providing on-the-scene care and transporting you to the hospital if you cannot get there on your own. Our team can collect this documentation for you so you can focus on your treatment and recovery.
Doctors at the emergency department can determine the full extent of your injuries and identify ones that you might not have been aware of, as the adrenaline from the crash can easily mask underlying injuries. Getting medical attention and following your doctors’ recommendations is critical to recovering compensation after a car accident. Your medical records will be used as evidence of the expenses you incurred. They will also serve as the basis for your non-economic damages, like the physical pain caused by your injuries and the emotional suffering caused by the fallout of the accident. However, you do not need to worry about gathering these records, as our team can request them for each provider who treated you.
Pedestrian Accidents
A pedestrian hit by a negligent driver is likely to have significant damages that our team can help recover compensation for. For example, pedestrians are much more likely to sustain serious spinal cord injuries causing paralysis, which can result in damages well over $1,000,000 in just the first year, followed by millions for lifetime costs. Because of the massive change in the victim’s life, their pain and suffering are likely to be significant, which our team can help calculate in addition to your medical expenses.
If a negligent driver wrongfully caused the death of a pedestrian accident victim, our team can also help file a claim to recover compensation for their family. This can include burial costs, loss of support, medical bills, and many more damages.
How Our Truck Accident Attorneys Can Help You File a Claim for an Accident in Berea, SC
Commercial vehicle accidents, from those involving massive tractor-trailers to local Amazon delivery trucks, often result in severe and even fatal injuries. As such, a victim’s damages can easily overwhelm their financial resources. Fortunately, an employer can often be held responsible for the misconduct of its employees under the legal principle known as “respondeat superior.”
One of the most common causes of truck accidents in Berea is driver fatigue. To prevent this, truck drivers are held to strict driving hours of service regulations, including when they must take breaks and when they need to go off-duty. Our team can gather driver logs and black box data to determine if these rules were being violated when the trucker caused the accident.
It must be noted that the respondeat superior rule generally does not apply to accidents caused by independent contractors. For instance, if you were hit by an Amazon delivery truck, we likely cannot hold Amazon liable for the driver’s negligent conduct because they do not work directly for the company.
However, we can see if Amazon has significant control over the driver’s actions enough to argue that they should be held accountable in your legal claim. If a third-party shipping company employs the driver who does the deliveries for Amazon, we could sue them in most cases. Our team will also explore Amazon’s insurance options, which might at least cover some of your medical costs.
Filing a Lawsuit with Our Slip and Fall Accident Lawyers in Berea, SC
When someone slips and falls on another person’s property because of a hazardous condition, our team can help file a premises liability lawsuit against them. Perhaps you were at a grocery store or restaurant when you slipped on a spill that had been left out for far too long. If so, and no wet floor sign was put out, take photos of the spill before an employee cleans it up.
Slip and fall accidents can happen in many other ways. For instance, perhaps you fell because the stairs in your apartment building were faulty, lacked handrails, or had poor lighting. In that case, we can file a claim against the apartment building owner.
While property owners generally do not owe a duty of care to trespassers, there are some situations in which we can still file a lawsuit on behalf of the victim. If the property owner acted maliciously, like knowingly having a highly dangerous condition that they provided no warnings for, we can still file a lawsuit on behalf of the victim. Property owners can also be held liable for hazards that constitute an “attractive nuisance” to trespassers, such as children who sneak into a neighbor’s swimming pool that lacks adequate protection.
Reasons Our Product Liability Attorneys File Claims in Berea, SC
Our lawyers can also help you file a product liability claim if a dangerous good injures you. Some products are dangerous by design, so each model off the shelf will have the same flaw. Others are negligently manufactured against the designer’s specifications. In other cases, the item is made correctly but lacks adequate warning labels directing customers on how to use the product safely. Our team can gather evidence to determine who should be held responsible for the defective product.
Design Defects
Design flaws occur because of issues in a product’s initial design or blueprint. In contrast to manufacturing defects, which result from mistakes in production or assembly, a design defect is an intrinsic problem with the product that impacts every unit made by the manufacturer. For instance, if there is a flaw in the design of an airbag system, every person with that specific airbag in their vehicle will be vulnerable to injury.
When assessing a potential design defect, our injury lawyers generally focus on three essential questions. First, was the design inherently dangerous even before the product hit the market? Second, could it have been reasonably foreseen, or should it have been known, that the product’s design might potentially injure users? Lastly, was there an economically feasible way to develop a safer design while maintaining the product’s intended purpose? If one or more of these questions are answered affirmatively, we can file a product liability claim against the designer.
Manufacturer Defects
Defects in manufacturing occur during the building or assembly of a product. A mistake in the assembly process can turn a normally safe product into a potentially dangerous one. Perhaps the manufacturer failed to follow the design, using substandard materials. Or, they might have knowingly used dangerous materials when making the product.
Fortunately, manufacturing defects affect only a small percentage of the items available to consumers. As mentioned, if the error was not made during manufacturing, we will investigate the product’s designer for the fault. In some cases, we can sue both if they acted negligently in producing the good.
Failure to Warn
A product liability claim can be filed if a manufacturer fails to inform consumers about a product’s potential dangers adequately. Certain products carry inherent risks that cannot be avoided. For example, cleaning products can be dangerous if not used properly because they lack instructions. These risks exist independently of any manufacturing defects or design flaws. Additionally, businesses that distribute the product can be held liable if a warning label or clear instructions might have helped prevent a likely injury and knew the product lacked instructions.
Our attorneys typically consider several factors to determine the adequacy of a warning label. First, we will look at whether the product poses any potential risks. We will also review whether the victim used the product as intended or outside of its intended use.
In many cases, products have warning labels that are unclear and hard to understand, for which the manufacturer can be held liable. This usually happens with complex products, like construction equipment and prescription medications.
How Our Personal Injury Attorneys Can Fight Claims of Comparative Negligence in Your Berea, SC Accident Lawsuit
A few states use “pure” comparative negligence to determine fault between victims and defendants. In this system, victims cannot recover compensation if they are found to have contributed to their accident. Fortunately, South Carolina uses the far less harsh rule that most jurisdictions follow called “modified” comparative negligence.
Under this rule, victims can still pursue compensation in a lawsuit even if they were partially at fault for the accident. However, there is a limit to how negligent a plaintiff can be before they are barred from recovering damages. If a victim is found to be more negligent than the defendant, they cannot recover any compensation. Plaintiffs that are 50% or less liable than defendants can get compensation, but it will be lowered by the proportion of fault they are assigned. For instance, a victim found 10% at fault will still recover 90% of their damages.
Our team will gather various types of evidence to fight comparative negligence arguments. Eyewitnesses can help prove the other person’s fault by describing what they saw during the accident. If a driver claims you ran a red light but witnesses state you had the green light, it can save compensation you might otherwise lose.
Photos and videos can also be incredibly helpful. If you can, you should take pictures of the scene before getting medical care. For example, a picture of a hard-to-see spill can show that you did not have a chance to see and avoid it. We might also be able to use surveillance footage to prove fault if a camera caught the accident.
Call Our Berea, SC Personal Injury Lawyers Today to Get Compensation for Your Damages
Contact our personal injury attorneys at Rice, Murtha & Psoras by calling (803) 219-4906 for a free case assessment.