The difficulty of recovering from a personal injury can’t be overestimated. You should not have to live with the consequences of someone else’s reckless behavior. When someone behaves negligent and it causes an injury or death, they should be held accountable.
If you were hurt in Georgia and the injury was not your fault, you could have a legal right to recover money for your costs, including medical bills, prescription drugs, missed work days and more. You need to speak to a personal injury lawyer in Douglasville at John Foy & Associates.
What Should You Do After an Injury?
Some injuries are temporary while others are life-changing. All injuries are stressful, frustrating, and potentially very expensive. The best thing you can do after you’re injured is to be your own advocate and take simple steps to protect your rights. Be sure to take these important steps:
- DON’T sign anything from the insurance company. Insurance companies tend to rush in after an accident to offer the victim fast cash. This money can be tempting, especially when you have medical bills already piling up.
- Be careful. The reason insurance companies try to settle your claim before you know how much your injury really costs. If you accept the money, you could sign away your right to a much larger amount. Never take a check, sign any paperwork, or give the insurance company a statement until you have talked to a lawyer.
- Speak to a lawyer. The single most important step you can take after an injury is to accept a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer. A good lawyer will have a long history working on cases like yours, and will be able to tell whether you have a strong claim.
A Douglasville personal injury attorney can also help you get the medical advice you need to know the full extent of your injuries and what the long-term cost will be. This one step could help you get tens of thousands of dollars more than the insurance company originally offered.
How do You Know If You Have a Valid Personal Injury Claim?
As a general rule, if the accident was not your fault you have a claim. Injury victims are often too quick to blame themselves, or to write the injury off as a freak accident. The law doesn’t see it this way. Most injuries could have been prevented and are the result of someone’s negligence.
Negligence doesn’t mean that anyone set out to hurt you on purpose, it just means that their carelessness helped cause the accident. This is true of many car accidents, slip and fall incidents and other common injuries. The at-fault party’s insurance is then liable for your injuries.
Nearly any type of injury can qualify. But the most common types of personal injury claims that our attorneys work on include:
- Vehicle accidents
- Bitten by a dog
- Tripping or slipping and falling
- Being hit by a car while walking or biking
- Injured by a mugger
- Neglect in nursing homes
- Defective products
- Dangerous medical devices
- Harmful prescription drugs
Do You Have to Go to Court to Win a Personal Injury Claim in Douglasville?
It is not common to have to go to court to win a personal injury claim. Sometimes an insurance company will refuse to negotiate unless your attorney takes them to court. This could be because they are too confident in their evidence, or it could be because they think they can discredit you in front of a jury.
If the at-fault party’s insurance company wants to take you to court, your lawyer will advise you on how strong your case is and help you decide if you should take your claim all the way. If you decide to go to local court, your legal team will handle the process for you as much as possible.
It’s much more common for the insurance companies to negotiate without going to court. This is because Douglasville personal injury lawyers start every claim by launching their own investigation into the injury and reconstructing exactly what happened in order to confront the insurance company with hard proof of the full extent of your injuries and the money you need.
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How Much does It Cost to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer in Douglasville?
Many personal injury firms don’t believe you should have to pay out of pocket to get legal help. And at John Foy & Associates, we don’t either. Instead, our Douglasville personal injury attorneys use a simple payment structure:
- Your consultation is always free
- You pay nothing out of pocket, ever
- If your lawyer doesn’t get you money, you won’t pay them anything
If your personal injury attorney recovers money for you, they get paid a percentage and you keep everything else. That way, you get professional legal help with no risk.
How Long do You Have to File an Injury Claim in Douglasville?
The deadlines in Douglasville are set by both state and federal law. Different types of cases have different time limits, and which one applies to you depends on the details of your case.
At most, you will have up to two years from the date of your accident, set forth by Georgia Code § 9-3-33. In some cases, however, you may only have weeks. This is why every accident victim should talk to a lawyer right away.
You Have the Right to Pursue the Compensation You Deserve
Your personal injury attorney in Douglasville should be dedicated to collecting as much recovery for your financial and emotional losses as allowable by civil laws and guidelines. They can review the details of your case and assign a monetary value to your damages to bring to settlement negotiations. You can get compensation for:
- Past, current, and future medical bills
- Lost wages and benefits from missed work
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Wrongful death
- Property damage
Time missed at work and a shortage of insurance coverage can add to the stress of an accident that was caused by another individual’s careless actions. While money does not correct the past mistakes of another person, it may take care of financial worries and help your family begin to move past the accident.
Understanding Georgia Personal Injury Laws After a Personal Injury Accident
A Douglasville personal injury attorney can explain to you state and federal laws that might pertain to your case. This way you get the full picture and understand how your legal team can protect you and fight for your right to compensation. They can do this by first determining negligence in your case and then proving fault.
Determining Negligence
For people in Georgia to seek compensation for their damages from the at-fault party, they must determine negligence. If your case makes it infront of a judge, know that they typically cannot render a verdict in your favor unless you and your attorney can identify the four elements of negligence: a duty of care, a breach of that duty, causation and your damages.
Proving Fault
If you were partially responsible for your accident, you can still recover compensation from the at-fault party according to the comparative fault law, found in Georgia Code §51-12-33. Your settlement or court award will be reduced in proportion to your percentage of fault. For example, if you were 30% at fault for the accident, you would only recover 70% of your damages.
Speak to a Douglasville Personal Injury Lawyer for Free
At John Foy & Associates, our only mission is to help the victims of injuries. We started as a small local law firm and rose to become one of the largest, most successful names in the state, even earning the nickname “the Strong Arm” because of our tough approach to insurance companies. Our Douglasville personal injury lawyers know how to get you the money you need.
Let us show you the difference it makes to have a professional on your side. We will give you a free case review to answer your questions and help you get started with your claim. Call us or fill out the form to your right and get your FREE consultation today.
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