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Can I Get Compensation for a Severe or Catastrophic Injury?

Personal Injury

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Understanding California’s Personal Injury Laws for Severe Injuries

Even minor injuries sustained in an accident can result in thousands of dollars in medical bills, but if your injuries were severe or catastrophic, you could be facing financial devastation. The good news is that California law allows you to seek compensation from the at-fault party if you were injured in an accident. Find out more about how this works and what you may be able to get below.

What Counts as a Severe or Catastrophic Injury?

What is considered a severe or catastrophic injury can vary from person to person, and there is no strict definition. However, injuries that rise to this level generally require hospitalization, surgeries, and ongoing medical care. Life-threatening injuries are certainly included in this list. However, some injuries may not seem at first as severe as they are. For example, if you are in a car accident and initially sustain just a broken leg but later on develop fibromyalgia as a result of the trauma, this could impact your ability to work and your quality of life, which could make the injury catastrophic.

How Is Fault Determined?

California is an at-fault state, which simply means that the person at fault for an accident can be sued for damages, including compensation related to medical bills and pain and suffering. However, determining who was at fault can be challenging. Few instances are cut and dried, and it can take months for a determination to be made.

In general, insurance companies are responsible for determining who is at fault in an accident. They will investigate the accident, including talking to both parties and any other witnesses, and review police reports to get a better idea of what happened and what actions — and whose — led to the accident. In complex cases, the insurance company may even do an accident reconstruction to assist in determining who was at fault.

If the other party is found at fault, you can then decide if you wish to pursue a civil lawsuit seeking compensation. It’s important to note that this is an option even if you were also found partially at fault, as long as your fault percentage was less than 50%. However, if you were found to be partially at fault, it could decrease the amount of money you’re able to get.

How Much Money Can I Get?

This is a common question that we get, but it’s not an easy one to answer. It’s normal to want to know what kind of compensation you may be entitled to, but this number is different for every situation. Some of the factors that can affect how much you may get if you win your case are:

  • The severity of the injuries: Usually, more serious injuries result in higher compensation.
  • The percentage of fault: The more fault that is attributed to the other party, the more money you may be able to get.
  • The amount of expenses you’ve incurred as a result of the accident. Compensation is largely based on how much money you’ve lost by paying medical bills or taking time off of work, but you may also be able to get additional money for pain and suffering in some cases.
  • How much insurance the other party had. Insurance companies sometimes have maximum payouts, which can limit your compensation.
  • The quality of your legal representation. Having an experienced personal injury attorney representing you can increase the likelihood of winning your case and may help you get more money.

Should I Settle With the Insurance Company?

Insurance companies will often try to settle with you out of court to avoid going to trial. However, these offers are often much lower than what you could get if you countered or took the case to trial. If the insurance company has offered a settlement, it’s important to have your attorney review it to ensure that it’s adequate and in line with the expenses you’ve incurred so far and what you may continue to spend in the future. When you work with The Weinberger Law Firm, we can talk to and negotiate directly with the insurance company on your behalf to attempt to settle, but we’re also ready and willing to take your case to trial, if necessary.

What Is the Statute of Limitations on Personal Injury Cases in California?

The statute of limitations is the timeframe in which a person has to file a lawsuit after an accident. The time period usually begins on the date of the accident. However, there are some situations where this is changed to start when the person is made aware that they were injured. For example, if there is a medical error made during a surgery and you’re not aware until three years later when it starts causing symptoms, the statute of limitations would begin when you were aware of the malpractice.

The statute of limitation for personal injury cases in California is two years. However, this doesn’t mean that you should wait until close to the end of that period to file a claim. In general, it’s best to talk with an attorney as soon as possible after the accident once your immediate injuries have been dealt with. They can advise you of when to file the suit and what to do in the meantime to document your injuries and expenses.

Suffering severe or catastrophic injuries can alter the course of your life, and while money can’t restore your physical function or health, it can alleviate the financial burden and make it easier to adjust to a new normal. If you’ve been injured in an accident, contact The Weinberger Law Firm at 916-661-4464 to find out how our team can help you hold the other party responsible and get the money you deserve.

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Trampolines are a popular backyard toy, but they are a serious safety risk. Many people will let neighbors or their children’s friends come over to play on the trampoline. Doing this could put you at risk for a liability claim should a child suffer an injury.

Understanding how dangerous trampolines are can help you to decide what to do and prepare yourself to make a safer space for visitors.

Risks

The Cleveland Clinic explains trampoline injuries can result from many situations, but the most common are falls. Other issues may come from trying to do stunts, which can result in head, shoulder, neck and back injuries. The springs are another danger that could result in serious injuries.

Safety

To keep things safe, you need to install different devices. Your trampoline should have a net around it and covers on the springs. In addition, you should make rules for using the trampoline. Children should never be allowed to play on it without adult supervision. You also might want to enforce a rule that allows only one person at a time on it.

Set up the trampoline on a flat and solid surface as well. Make sure that you check it often for damage. It is also a good idea to limit use to only older children since statistics show younger children are most at risk of injury.

Kids love trampolines, and they can be a great source of exercise. They also are good at keeping kids occupied for a long time. But they are dangerous. Injuries can range from sprains to broken bones. It is important that you take the time to safeguard your trampoline and ensure that you enforce rules to keep users safe.

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Slipping and falling could inflict painful injuries and even endanger your health. In the event a negligent property owner is responsible for your fall, you should know in advance how to safeguard your rights to compensation.

Keep the following three tips in mind in case you should experience a fall somewhere beyond your own home.

Take pictures and video

Chances are that you will have a smartphone on your person during a fall. Your phone is a good way to gather evidence on the scene. However, you might not be able to get up unassisted if your injuries are serious. Sfgate explains that you may try activating the recording function on your phone. This should be enough to collect pictures and sound that could be of help to you later on.

Ask witnesses to support your claims

If you were in a location with multiple patrons when you fell, it is likely one or more people watched you fall. If they agree with your account of your injury, they could bolster your claim if the property owner denies responsibility. If you are able following your fall, you may gather contact information of eyewitnesses.

Limit what you say while reporting your injury

If you report your fall to a supervisor or anyone who is in charge of the property, be cautious of what you say. Reporting that you have fallen puts your injury on the record and adds evidence to your case, but if you say something that makes it appear that you bore responsibility for your injury, the property owner could use your own words against you.

Falls can require medical treatment and even hospital stays. Older fall victims can also experience emotional trauma. If you seek compensation, be sure that you have done all you can to support your claim.

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If you or a loved one becomes injured due to the actions or negligence of another person, the severity of the injury will dictate the terms of a personal injury claim. While all injuries impact a victim’s quality of life, catastrophic injuries carry the most significant consequences.

Understanding the difference between typical personal injury claims and those that involve catastrophic injuries may help you determine what compensation options are available to you.

Personal injury claims

The instigation of personal injury claims is primarily on the basis of another party’s behavior, or lack thereof, that resulted in a serious injury or illness. These injuries may require extensive rehabilitation, time off work or a loss of employment, costly medical care and an interruption of the victim’s way of life.

Personal injury claims are largely an umbrella term for cases with serious injuries that seek some level of compensation, but not all personal injury claims involve catastrophic permanent physical harm.

Catastrophic injuries

Some accidents have life-changing consequences. By definition, catastrophic injuries involve long-term effects of an accident, including permanent physical or mental disability, a requirement for ongoing and intensive medical care or a significant interruption to your ability to sustain meaningful employment.

Personal injury cases for catastrophic injuries generally seek compensation for potentially lifelong damages. Compensation may not make up for the physical or emotional toll a catastrophic injury brings to your life, but it can help to recover economic losses and prepare you for future medical care and coverage that you would not have otherwise required.

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If you lose your footing and injure yourself in a store, you may face a host of new challenges, such as physical pain, inability to perform daily functions like you used to, and inability to work to support your family while you heal. Even if you are not eager to bring a lawsuit and go through the legal process, you need compensation for the economic and physical toll that your accident has taken on your life. Under what circumstances can you hold the storeowner legally responsible for a slip and fall?

What makes a storeowner legally liable

The mere fact that you suffered an injury inside of a store does not automatically make the owner liable for your injury. Instead, your attorney will have to prove the existence of certain elements before you stand a chance of being successful in a lawsuit.

First, there must have been a dangerous condition. In the setting of a store, this is most often something like spilled liquid, uneven stairs, a broken railing, unstable shelves and so forth.

Next, your attorney must prove that the storeowner or their employees knew about the hazard, or that they would have known about it if they had exercised a reasonable level of prudence and care.

Finally, the storeowner’s employees must have failed to take adequate steps to mitigate the danger – such as by quickly mopping up the spill, posting signs, and otherwise warning customers of the potential danger. This is because California law imposes upon every property owner the responsibility to exercise reasonable care to keep their premises safe for visitors.

What you can recover

If you are successful in your lawsuit, you can seek compensation for your medical bills. You can also ask for damages resulting from your physical and emotional suffering, as well as any missed pay resulting from your inability to work. In rare cases, if your injury results in permanent disability, you might be able to recover for your loss of future earning capacity.

Slip and fall cases can be nasty, and can result in considerable suffering for the victim. Sometimes, pursuing a claim against the storeowner is the only way to be made whole again after the accident.

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After a car accident, your physician and loved ones may focus on helping you heal from your physical injuries. But after a serious collision, you may also experience symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and other emotional effects.

The American Psychiatric Association defines PTSD as a psychiatric disorder that can occur after you witness a traumatic event, like a car accident. Following the accident, it is important to take steps that can help you protect your mental health and wellbeing, especially if you develop PTSD.

Talk to trusted friends and family

It may be difficult to talk about the car accident and relive this traumatic day. But talking about what happened with a close friend, family member or therapist can help you process this event and move forward.

Stay physically active

Your physical health can directly affect your mental health and exercise can help you reduce stress and anxiety. Commit to daily exercise and active activities approved by your doctor during the recovery process.

Get back to your routine

You may feel overwhelmed at the thought of going back to school, work and your routine. Ease back into his process slowly, so you can start to feel like life has started to return to normal.

A car accident can greatly alter your life in an instant, so it is normal to struggle on an emotional level in the aftermath of the collision. Be patient with yourself as you heal and focus on recovering mentally as well as physically in the days and weeks following the accident.

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An accident that causes serious injuries can change your life. You may not be able to continue working as you once did and may need to deal with bills from multiple medical procedures. You may need to plan for future procedures, physical therapy and may even need to restructure parts of your home for better access.

Those who are in this situation may believe that insurance will cover the cost of their injuries and help them get back on their feet. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Even in clear cases when there is no question that the other party was at fault, insurance companies are notorious for trying to low-ball or even deny the claim and avoid paying the victim a reasonable recovery. Common tactics can include:

  • Look for a loophole. The first step is often an attempt to deny the claim completely. This is often achieved by claiming the accident does not qualify for coverage. The insurance provider may state that the accident was not the result of their customer’s negligence, but instead was your or another party’s fault.
  • Pressure to settle. The insurance contact may pressure you to take a settlement early on so you can move on and not worry about the claim, instead focusing on recovery. This is often a tactic used to pressure a victim into accepting a lower recovery rate than what they deserve.
  • Question injuries. Insurance providers will also question the severity of the injuries and threaten to carefully review medical records of discrepancies. They may also argue that the injuries were not the result of the accident but preexisting to further lower the chance of your getting a reasonable recovery.

Unfortunately the insurance companies are not the only ones looking to reduce the recovery amount available for victims. A recent law under consideration would limit how much a victim can compensate their attorney. If passed the law would cap the victim’s ability to compensate their legal counsel at 20%. This would limit their ability to hire skilled counsel. To make matters even worse, the law does not put a similar cap on insurance companies — they are free to pay as much as they want. Such a law could result in uneven representation for these types of claims.

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One of the hardest parts of recovering from a car accident in California may involve your emotional health. Finding the confidence to drive again when the very thought of getting in a car causes angst, may take some time and even professional intervention to overcome.

Improving your driving skills is one way that you may regain your confidence to drive.

Prepare and watch

Even if you are a great driver, accidents still happen. In fact, according to the California Office of Traffic Safety, in the year 2019, there were over 3,500 traffic fatalities in the state. The more prepared you are, the more focused you can stay on driving and getting safely to your destination. Some things you can do to stay safer include the following:

  • Map out your route ahead of time
  • Allow yourself plenty of time to get to your destination
  • Program your GPS before driving
  • Silence your cellphone
  • Constantly scan the area around you
  • Learn how to safely respond to road hazards

Know your car

You can also improve your driving abilities when you feel comfortable in your vehicle. Prior to leaving anywhere, adjust your mirrors and stirring wheel. Position your seat to where you can comfortably reach all of the controls. If driving an unfamiliar vehicle, take a minute to learn where various controls are so you do not have to figure things out while driving.

Keeping your vehicle well-maintained can also reduce the risks of an accident which can help you feel more confident. With time and practice, you can rebuild your confidence and find driving enjoyable again. Additionally, your desire to improve your driving habits may reduce your risks of injury in an accident.

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Far too often, injured people are mistreated by a negligent corporation and by the insurance industry.

The insurance companies step in after people are hurt and take advantage of them, giving them bad advice and cheap settlement and basically lying about the value of their cases.

Someone is injured through no fault of his own, or a family member or loved one is killed because of the recklessness of another person. It is clear that the other person is at fault. At first, it seems like the insurance company or negligent individual will not fight the case and will pay a quick settlement.

The insurance adjuster will ask the injured person to “Sign a few forms” or give a “recorded statement.” The insurance person acts nice and promises that the proper party will accept fault.

Then, after a while, the insurance company keeps asking for a bunch of information, forms, and paper. The adjuster stops calling back. The accident victim cant’ reach anyone or get any information from the company. Sometimes, they will try to make the injured person sign something before receiving medical attention.

Insurance companies do not treat injured victims fairly! That means that if you’ve been injured in an accident, you are in for a fight! That’s why it’s important to contact an experienced personal injury attorney at The Weinberger Law Firm to fight the greedy insurance companies for your fair compensation.

Insurance Myths After a Car Accident

Myth #1: You must sign every document the adjuster sends you – You are not required to sign a release of information for the other person’s insurance company. While an adjuster may want to look at your medical and employment records to assess your injuries, they do not have a right to the documents unless a lawsuit has been filed.

Myth #2: You have to give the adjuster a recorded statement – If a lawsuit hasn’t been filed, you do not have any obligation to give a statement to the other guy’s insurance company, recorded or otherwise. In fact, these often work against you because the adjuster can ask virtually question without objection and the claimant locks him or herself into answers early in the claim. It is important to speak to an attorney before agreeing to a recorded statement. Often an attorney will sit in on a recorded statement to protect your case.

Myth #3: Insurance adjusters are always honest with claimants – In the days after a claim is opened, the adjuster’s goal is to find out as much as possible about a claim to find any weakness to exploit. Adjusters can sometimes say something just to see if the claimant will give them what they want or to see how the individual reacts. There have been documented instances of insurance companies using fraudulent means to get a claimant to accept a low settlement offer.

Myth #4: The insurance companies will make a reasonable offer to settle your claim to avoid having to hire an attorney to defend the case – This is simply not true. The insurance companies see this as nothing more as a cost of doing business. Also, there is an increasing trend towards insurance companies using in-house counsel, meaning that they don’t have to pay attorneys by the hour to represent them. Therefore, these companies are not saving by avoiding a lawsuit.

Myth #5: There is a set of quotations to estimate the value of the claim – You might have heard that a claim should be worth three times the amount of a medical bill that you incurred from the accident. However, the reality is that this is not true because every case is different. For instance, if you were to break your ribs, there would be little a doctor could do to treat your injuries and your appointment would be sporadic over a number of months. However, your pain and suffering would be great. Every move you make would be agonizing and even breathing would be painful. That case would have relatively low medical bills. On the other hand, if your injury is to your muscles and soft tissue in your neck or back, you would need regular treatment, sometimes on a daily basis, while the injury healed. Your pain and suffering would probably be considerably less than the case of a broken rib, but the bills for treatment would probably be higher.

If You Are Injured, the Insurance Company Has All the Power

When you are injured due to someone else’s negligence or recklessness, you are in a position of weakness. You’ve got medical bills to pay. You’ve got to figure out what to do with your job, how to make ends meet, how to take care of your family. The negligent person doesn’t have those concerns. And the negligent person probably has an insurance company working for him or her to help defend against you.

The insurance company will see thousands of injury claims each year. The insurance company will have “adjusters” whose only job is to save the insurance company money and defeat claims by injured people. These adjusters are very good at what they do. Most experienced adjusters will have handled hundreds of thousands of claims. They will know how to trick the injured person into doing something that hurts his or her case. They will know how to make it seem like they are your best friends or have your best interest at heart.

The Adjusters Are Not Your Best Friend and Do Not Have Your Best Interest at Heart

So, if you are hurt by someone else’s negligence it is important to contact a Folsom accident attorney Joe Weinberger at the Weinberger Law Firm. Protect your legal rights and call (916) 357-6767 to schedule a free consultation with a Folsom accident attorney Joe Weinberger.