When someone encounters a personal injury, it can cause problems physically, emotionally and financially. For this reason, it can be helpful to have an experienced legal professional on your team if you are ever in this situation.
Before calling a personal injury lawyer Durham, it can help you to prepare for the conversation if you have done some background research. Consider, for example, the three grounds for making a personal injury claim.
1. Strict Liability
In cases of strict liability, a defendant faces legal liability regardless of his or her intentions. For example, if you are using a product and you sustain an injury because of a manufacturer’s error, the manufacturing company can face strict liability even though the creators never intended for you to get hurt.
2. Intentional Wrongs
With intentional wrongs, these personal injury claims result from injuries that someone else causes intentionally. Unlike a product malfunction, intentional harm such as battery, assault or trespassing is not accidental. Harm can appear in various ways and injuries occur in many settings, from workplaces to hospitals and nursing homes. When it becomes clear that someone committed the act with ill intent, then the claim falls under this category.
3. Negligence
As the most common reason that individuals submit personal injury claims, negligence occurs when an injury stems from someone else’s failure to follow laws or rules. For example, if someone slips at a business because the owners failed to put up a wet floor sign, this type of injury could lead to a negligence claim. Negligence can occur in a wide variety of settings. Sometimes injuries occur in obvious ways such as the wet floor sign, but other times cases like medical or parenting negligence can differ substantially.
Having a personal injury can be a challenging situation to be in, but understanding what to expect in the legal processes ahead can help make life easier.
Learn to Calm
Once you’ve hired an attorney to represent you, don’t talk to everyone about the details of the case. It doesn’t matter who you talk to; if one comment you make about the case gets to the other side, you can damage your case unnoticed. You might say something that could ultimately destroy your case. If you must discuss the case with other people, ask your attorney if it is okay to do so.
Prepare Anything
A good attorney will prepare for all possibilities when dealing with personal injury cases. If negotiations fail, they will be ready to take the case to court. You also have to be prepared for all possible scenarios. Before you decide to pursue legal proceedings against the negligent party, you should be prepared to go as far as the case will take you to obtain maximum compensation.
