How do I Know if I Have a Personal Injury Claim?

Unfortunately, negligence causes injuries to others every day. Whether a drunk driver causes a collision, a company’s product produces illness or injury, or someone’s dog bites and injures another person, the victims in these cases deserve compensation.

Getting a satisfactory settlement is often challenging without legal representation. These cases involve insurance companies with extensive resources and experience to use against you. You might think they will treat you fairly, but they’re only interested in their bottom line.

You might have a valid personal injury claim if you sustained injuries or harm resulting from someone else’s negligence. Phillips Law Group has helped countless clients obtain compensation, and we want to help you do the same.

Do You Have a Personal Injury Claim?

Several factors combine to make a valid personal injury claim. Each state has its own laws governing personal injury cases, so the criteria may differ depending on which state you’re in when the injury occurs. However, most personal injury claims involve negligence, qualifying injuries, the severity of those injuries and how they affect the victim’s life, and financial damages.

There are several common categories of personal injury claims, including:

• Auto, motorcycle, mass transit, and truck accidents
• Dog bites
• Medical malpractice
• Premises liability
• Product liability
• Slip-and-fall accidents
• Workplace injuries
• Wrongful death

If you think you have a personal injury claim, contact Phillips Law Group. We will evaluate the circumstances of your injury to assess the validity of your case.

What Is Negligence?

Negligence is a crucial component of personal injury cases. If you look for an online definition of “negligence,” you’ll find “failure to take proper care in doing something.” The legal definition of negligence is more specific, however: “a failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances,” or “the failure to meet a standard of behavior established to protect society against unreasonable risk.”

Legal jargon is often difficult to understand. To make it more straightforward, let’s call our defendant Joe. When determining whether Joe is guilty of negligence, ask these questions:

• Would most people know that Joe’s actions or inactions could cause harm?
• Could a reasonable person predict that the damage might be severe?
• Was there something Joe could have done differently to reduce or avoid risking harm?
• Did Joe know about the potential risk in enough time to address it?

If the answer to one or more of those questions is yes, Joe is probably guilty of negligence. You can likely pursue a personal injury claim against him if his conduct injured you.

Some examples of negligence include:

• A physician or other medical professional who causes harm to a patient due to misdiagnosis, prescribing incorrect medications, surgical errors, etc
• A driver who causes a collision because of failure to follow traffic laws
• A business manager or property owner who causes slip and fall injuries because they didn’t maintain a safe property
• A manufacturer whose products cause harm to users due to a defect

You deserve compensation if you sustained injuries or harm because of someone else’s negligence. Your attorney from Phillips Law Group will advise you about how you can proceed.

What Is a Duty of Care?

Your personal injury claim is based on someone else’s negligence, but you must first prove that the guilty party owed you a duty of care. What does that mean? We’ll use Joe again to demonstrate.

Was Joe obliged to act in a way to avoid causing harm to you?

• If Joe was driving, he had a duty of care to drive safely to avoid accidents that would likely injure those involved.
• If Joe managed a retail store, he had a duty of care to ensure that someone mopped up a spill immediately to prevent people from slipping and falling on wet floors.
• Dr. Joe had a duty of care to competently diagnose your illness, perform your surgery, or prescribe your medications to provide quality medical care without causing further harm or illness.

Once you’ve established that Joe did owe you a duty of care, we must also prove other criteria to validate your personal injury claim:

• Joe didn’t fulfill his duty of care (he drove while drunk, for example).
• Joe’s failure to meet his duty of care contributed to causing your injuries (his drunk driving caused a collision, injuring you).
• Your injuries resulting from Joe’s negligence caused measurable losses to you, such as lost wages and medical bills.

Some states, including Arizona, use comparative negligence to decide how much compensation you can receive if you are partially to blame for the accident that caused your injuries. Don’t let partial fault keep you from filing a personal injury claim.

Even if your actions contributed to causing your injuries, you may still qualify to obtain compensation from others. Your personal injury lawyer from Phillips Law Group can hold other guilty parties accountable.

Why and When Should You Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?

Obtaining the proper evidence to prove that Joe’s negligence caused your injuries is sometimes challenging. A personal injury lawyer has advantages, like complete knowledge of claims processes, evidence to look for and how to find it, and legal requirements.

In addition, law firms have extensive resources. We at Phillips Law Group utilize these resources on behalf of our clients to gather evidence, prove that your medical condition warrants compensation, and show the adverse effects your injuries have on your daily life. We will:

• Thoroughly investigate your accident or other cause of your injury.
• Obtain proof that the injury caused financial losses.
• Show that your injury adversely impacted your life.
• Prove that the other party or parties contributed significantly to your condition and thus owes you compensation.
• Handle communication with insurance company representatives, investigators, and attorneys on your behalf.

Without an attorney on your side, insurance companies will probably make minimal settlement offers. These might not cover all of your current medical expenses and lost wages, let alone compensate you for other damages you’re entitled to.

Hiring a personal injury attorney from Phillips Law Group soon after your injury accomplishes some critical things:

• We won’t allow insurance companies to bully you into accepting less compensation than you’re due.
• We begin establishing your case immediately, giving us access to evidence while it’s still fresh.
• We will have ample time to reach a satisfactory settlement or take your case to court before the statute of limitations expires.

Why Choose Phillips Law Group?

With several locations to serve our clients, the personal injury attorneys at Phillips Law Group are here to help. We believe everyone deserves competent legal representation, so we offer every potential client a free consultation. We’ll gather details about your injury and give you an initial assessment.

If you have a valid personal injury claim, our attorneys take most cases on a contingency fee basis. This means that you won’t pay us unless we obtain compensation for you.

Our years of experience give us the knowledge we need to negotiate maximum compensation for our clients successfully. We’ll try to obtain a satisfactory settlement, but we will take your case to trial if the defendant refuses to pay as much as they should.

No matter the type of personal injury case you have, Phillips Law Group can help you. Schedule your free, no-obligation consultation today. Call us at (800) 706-3000, submit our free case evaluation form, or reach out using live chat.