Personal Injury Lawyer in Apple Valley
A serious injury puts every aspect of your life on pause. You may be stuck in the hospital. You can’t work. You can’t even enjoy time with your family because you are in so much pain. And you may be looking at years of recovery — maybe even permanent disabilities.
If someone else caused your injury, it’s not just unfair, it’s wrong. But fortunately, California law provides a way for the victims of injuries to recover compensation from those who hurt them. Filing a personal injury claim could secure all the compensation you need to right the wrong that was done to you, but actually winning your lawsuit is going to pose some serious challenges.
That’s where an Apple Valley personal injury lawyer from Moody Law comes in. We can help from day one to the day you receive full compensation. For more information on personal injury claims, keep reading. And to get help with your case, reach out to our firm today.
Accidents That Lead to Personal Injury Lawsuits
The term “personal injury” can refer to almost any injury that results from an accident someone else caused through negligence. That means almost any kind of accident can warrant a personal injury claim, but Apple Valley personal injury lawyers see a few types of accidents pop up more often than others.
Car Accidents
Almost everybody drives, so car accidents are some of the most common types of accidents that lead to personal injury claims. Many of these lawsuits begin as insurance claims but enter the courts when the insurers refuse to compensate the victim fairly.
Behaviors like distracted driving, drunk driving, drowsy driving, speeding, and reckless driving often cause serious car accidents.
Truck Accidents
Truck drivers work long shifts on little sleep, and they often feel like they own the road. This is a recipe for disaster that leaves countless Californians injured in 18-wheeler accidents every year.
One of the key problems in personal injury claims that arise from truck accidents is figuring out who is at fault: the trucker, the trucking company, the vehicle manufacturer, or a government road authority? A personal injury lawyer in Apple Valley can help you understand how to move forward.
Motorcycle Accidents
Drivers like to pretend like motorcyclists somehow have less of a right to the road than everyone else. They don’t look for motorcycles and fail to understand how much more serious injuries for motorcyclists are than injuries for other drivers in accidents.
Add to that the problem that insurers like to use reckless motorcyclist stereotypes against motorcycle accident victims. Recovering compensation after such an accident is essential, but it often poses obstacles that only an experienced personal injury lawyer can tackle.
Dog Bites
California’s dog bite law is very clear: Dog owners are responsible for the injuries their dogs cause through bites, even if the dog was never aggressive before. Keep in mind that the injuries from a dog bite can range from the physical, such as the bite itself and resulting infections, to the mental, such as trauma that keeps you from enjoying walks in your neighborhood.
Slip-and-Fall Accidents
Property owners are responsible for maintaining their property to prevent accidents that hurt visitors. This applies to your neighbor as much as it applies to the local grocery store. Accidents caused by property hazards are called premises liability accidents, and slip-and-fall accidents are the most common kind.
Defective Products
Product manufacturers, marketers, and retailers have a duty to consumers to ensure that the product is safe for its intended use. But defective products make it on the market all the time. When they hurt someone, anyone in the chain of production of that product could be liable.
Pedestrian and Bicycle Accidents
When drivers aren’t paying attention, pedestrians and cyclists often pay the price. Speeding through an intersection or failing to yield the right-of-way to pedestrians in a crosswalk can cause life-altering injuries to victims.
Wrongful Deaths
Many of the above types of accidents can be fatal. When any accident caused by someone else kills the victim, the victim’s family may be eligible for wrongful death compensation.
Understanding Negligence in California Personal Injury Cases
The concept of negligence will play a critical role in your personal injury claim. In California, you can only sue for injuries if the person you are suing was negligent in some way and that negligence caused the injury.
Negligence can mean a lot of different actions or inactions. Here are a few examples:
- Driving drunk and causing a car accident
- Failing to clean up a spill in a grocery store, and someone later slips on the spill
- Not properly restraining an aggressive dog that then bites someone
- Carelessly manufacturing a product that then malfunctions and hurts a user
Keep in mind, too, that California law allows several parties to hold the blame for an accident. That means you can sue everyone whose negligence contributed to your injuries. However, it also means you can hold some of the blame for what happened. And your compensation will be reduced by the percentage of blame you are found to hold.
A personal injury lawyer in Apple Valley can help you figure out who was at fault for your accident and protect you from unfair blame being placed on you.
Recovering Compensation for an Injury in Apple Valley
When you file a personal injury lawsuit in California, you have to be able to list each way you have been harmed because of the at-fault party’s negligence. These ways in which you have been harmed are referred to as “damages.”
You also have to assign a monetary value to each damage you suffered. That way, you can know how much compensation to demand in your injury claim. Assigning value to damages can become complicated, especially when you are discussing damages that don’t directly impact your wallet.
An Apple Valley personal injury lawyer can help you calculate the maximum value of the following personal injury damages, among others:
- Medical bills
- Pain and suffering
- Property damage
- Lost income at work
- Future lost income due to your injuries
- Emotional trauma
- Scarring and disfigurement
Speak with an Apple Valley Personal Injury Lawyer
Getting an Apple Valley personal injury lawyer involved with your case as soon as possible can boost your chances of recovering the full compensation you deserve. At Moody Law, we are on call to help local residents who have been hurt in serious accidents.
To schedule a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer, give us a call at (760) 867-3300 or contact us online.