Ilchester, MD Personal Injury Lawyer
Serious injuries should not be taken lightly. A serious injury could seriously upend your life in the short term and the long term. You could rack up enormous medical bills from hospital stays, surgeries, physical therapy, or in-home care from a serious injury. Moreover, you may not be able to work after an injury, and you might not be able to do basic tasks or participate in activities you enjoy.
When you are injured, it may feel like the world is crashing down, but our lawyers are here to help get you back on track. We are experienced personal injury attorneys who will never give up on your case and will fight hard for you all the way through the entire legal process.
Call Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s personal injury lawyers for a free initial discussion of your case at (410) 694-7291.
Injuries We Can Help You with in Ilchester MD
Our personal injury attorneys can represent you for a number of different injuries. We will make sure that we tailor your representation to your specific needs and handle any injury-specific issues that arise in your case.
Car Accidents
Car accidents are one of the most common reasons for personal injury lawsuits. Despite many advances in safety features in motor vehicles over the decades, car accidents are still very dangerous and can result in serious injuries. Broken bones are not uncommon, and blunt trauma from a forceful impact can lead to bruising or brain damage. If you were a pedestrian when another car hit you, injuries are likely to be worse because pedestrians do not have the benefit of the safety features built into a car.
You do not need to be the one driving a vehicle to sue for injuries in a car accident. If you were a passenger in a vehicle that hit someone or got hit, you still can sue for any injuries you sustained.
Truck Accidents
Truck accidents are extremely dangerous because of the tremendous impact forces that are imparted on the human body when hit by a truck. Injuries from truck accidents are very frequently permanent and life-changing. It is not uncommon for victims of truck accidents to lose the ability to walk or do other basic tasks from damage to their bodies.
Slip and Fall Accidents
Slipping and falling down is much more serious than Saturday morning cartoons would lead you to believe. You can be badly injured if you land in the wrong way or are not prepared for the impact. For example, if you land in an awkward position on an arm or leg, it could break. Moreover, if the impact is such that it strikes and damages a nerve, you could be left with chronic, permanent pain or diminished use of that part of your body.
Many slip and fall injuries happen because property owners do not take good care of their premises. Examples of circumstances that could lead to a slip-and-fall injury include rickety or poorly lit stairwells and wet floors.
Proving Negligence in an Ilchester, MD Personal Injury Lawsuit
To win a personal injury lawsuit, most of the time you need to prove that the defendant was negligent. In law, negligence means that the defendant did not act how they were supposed to, and their careless actions caused you to get injured. Negligence has four parts or “elements” that need to be proven in court. Those elements are duty, breach, causation, and injury. When you speak with our personal injury lawyers, we will analyze the facts of your case to come up with an argument that proves the defendant negligently caused your injured. We will go over the four elements of establishing negligence below.
Duty
Duty means that the defendant had a legal duty towards you. In law, a “duty” is an obligation to another party. In general, people have a duty to one another to act as a reasonable, prudent person would under the circumstances. For example, drivers of motor vehicles have a duty to act as a reasonable driver would on the road. This means not driving aggressively or dangerously, as well as following all traffic rules.
Breach
Breach means that the defendant breached their duty of care towards you. For example, if a driver hits you because they were erratically switching lanes, they breached their duty to be a safe driver.
Causation
Causation will most likely be the most involved and most fought-over element in a personal injury lawsuit. To be successful in a personal injury lawsuit, you must prove not only that the defendant caused your injuries but that they were what is called the “proximate cause” of your injuries. The proximate cause is the cause most closely linked to your injuries. For example, if you are suing somebody because they hit you while driving under the influence, technically, the car salesman who sold them the car helped to cause your injuries because, without the car, the defendant could not have hit you. However, they are too far removed from your injuries to be liable. They are “cut off” in the chain of causation by the fact that this hypothetical defendant decided to drive drunk and got in an accident.
Injury
To prove the injury element, you need to establish that you were actually injured. Generally, this is proven through medical records admitted as evidence to the court. Other things that can be used to prove that you were injured include testifying before the court as well as images of your injuries or your recovery from them. Medical experts who treated you may also testify as to the extent of your injuries to try and support the amount of damages you are asking the court for from the defendant.
Have a Discussion with Our Ilchester, MD Personal Injury Lawyers Today
Rice, Murtha & Psoras’s personal injury attorneys are prepared to talk about your case if you call (410) 694-7291.