Have you been injured due to someone else's negligence and don't know where to turn? Contact the Law Offices of Christopher Trainor & Associates for a free consultation. We can help you obtain compensation for your losses.
Accidents can turn life upside down for many in Livonia every year. If you're an injury victim, you're likely facing serious injuries and a long recovery time. On top of that, there's the stress of missed work, mounting medical bills, and lost income. If you find yourself overwhelmed and unsure of your next steps, seek help from a Livonia personal injury lawyer. Remember, you don't have to handle the legal challenges of a personal injury on your own.
A Results-Driven Law Firm That Puts You First
The Law Offices of Christopher Trainor & Associates have served Livonia for many years. With decades of combined experience, our legal team exclusively practices personal injury law. When you partner with us, we'll provide you with a clear, three-step action plan to address your case.
Our team listens to your account of events.
We examine your case and compile information to create a compelling defense.
We put a lot of effort into making sure you get paid what you are due.
Without a lawyer, you risk settling your case for far less than you are entitled to. Worse yet, the insurance company might even deny your claim altogether. To sidestep these pitfalls, consider enlisting one of our seasoned personal injury attorneys. Our legal team is committed to managing your case with professionalism, honesty, and integrity.
Basics of Personal Injury Law
What's a personal injury? The legal definition refers to a situation in which someone gets injured due to someone else’s negligence. When this happens, the injured person can seek compensation through civil court.
The basic tenet of the law is that the person who has suffered physical harm must show that the injury resulted from the defendant's carelessness or intentional harm. If the plaintiff wins, the court will award damages for pain and suffering, lost wages, medical expenses, and other losses. A civil trial is rarely necessary because victims usually settle out of court.
Injured individuals should consult Livonia personal injury lawyers as soon as possible after being hurt. We, as attorneys, advocate for our clients in various situations, including assaults, slip and fall, and car, motorcycle, and bus accidents. Our skills enable victims to obtain justice and financial compensation.
Types of Personal Injury Cases
A person may sustain an injury due to a variety of circumstances. Some of the most common circumstances are as follows:
Medical malpractice: This type of case happens when a healthcare professional doesn't meet the expected standards of their field and, as a result, harms a patient. This could include mistakes in diagnosing, treating, providing follow-up care, or managing a patient's health.
Construction and workplace accidents: The use of dangerous materials, large machinery, elevated work platforms, and electrical work are often the reasons for construction-related harm or loss of life.
Pedestrian accidents: Driving while intoxicated (DWI), running red signals, and distracted driving are all frequent reasons for foot traffic accidents.
Slip and fall incidents: These claims involve individuals injured on another person's property due to a dangerous condition, such as a damp floor, an icy walkway, or uneven ground.
Automobile accidents: People involved in collisions with trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians often seek financial compensation for their injuries. These incidents also affect companies like Uber and Lyft, which operate ridesharing services. Common causes of these crashes include reckless driving, distractions behind the wheel, and mechanical issues.
Truck accidents: Small passenger cars often collide with huge commercial trucks, such as 18-wheelers, tractor-trailers, and semi-trucks. These crashes result from several reckless behaviors, including speeding, fatigue, distracted driving, and poor mechanical maintenance.
Motorcycle crashes: This free-spirited ride comes with its fair share of dangers. Many circumstances can lead to negligence, such as driving while drunk, speeding, being distracted, and failing to cede the right of way.
Dog bites: Dog attacks can range from minor nips to severe maulings that cause significant physical injuries. Infections, abrasions, puncture wounds, and, in extreme cases, permanent bodily and psychological damage often plague victims.
Snowmobile accidents: These incidents can occur on trails, frozen lakes, or open fields, and they can cause fatalities as well as injuries and property damage. These risks include collisions with cars, other snowmobiles, or objects due to quick acceleration, inexperience, poor visibility, rugged terrain, and careless driving.
Boating incidents: These occur when people use boats on bodies of water and sustain injuries, pass away, or cause property damage. Fast speeds, drinking alcohol, defective equipment, inattentive or unskilled boat operators, and stormy weather or water conditions are some causes.
If you have been harmed due to someone else's negligence, you have the right to fair compensation. You can get advice from an experienced personal injury attorney about what to do legally.
Common Types of Personal Injury Cases
You might be entitled to make a personal injury claim if you were hurt due to someone's careless behavior. Below is a list of the injuries victims suffer most often:
Fractured Bones: There are two main types of fractures: simple and complex compound fractures. Simple fractures typically heal quickly, while complex compound fractures are more severe and require more intensive treatment.
Musculoskeletal System Injuries: These conditions impact the tendons, ligaments, and muscles, leading to painful injuries that can restrict movement. There are two types of these injuries: tears and punctures.
Whiplash: This condition is caused by rapid back-and-forth motions of the neck, which usually occur in car accidents. Symptoms include pain, tightness, and persistent discomfort.
Heat-Related Injuries: These can include soft tissue injuries like sprains and strains, as well as burns from fire, chemicals, and hot surfaces. Long-term physical and psychological impairment may also result.
Spinal Cord Injuries: Spinal damage can lead to partial or complete loss of movement, making everyday activities and enjoying life much more difficult.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): There are many different types of TBIs, from mild head traumas to neurological impairments. An individual may experience physical, mental, or emotional effects from these catastrophic injuries.
If you've been injured in Livonia, MI, support is available. You're legally entitled to pursue a claim. Do you need help with your next steps? A skilled personal injury lawyer can provide the guidance you need.
What to Do After Being Hurt in an Accident
Accidents are scenes of chaos. You could experience pain, fear, and confusion as a victim. Your subsequent actions may impact your legal rights and emotional and physical healing. To protect yourself, do the following actions:
Put Your Safety First: If you're in a car accident, try to move to a secure spot. Aim to get your car off the road to keep you and others safe.
Call 911: Even if the injuries appear minor, you should call the Livonia Police Department or local law authorities. Their official accident reports can be helpful for any upcoming claims.
Consult a Physician:Adrenaline may prevent your body from sensing pain, giving you the impression that you are not injured. Once your hormone levels return to normal, you may show signs pointing to a potentially catastrophic injury. Consult a medical professional to get your condition evaluated.
Document the Evidence: Take photos of the debris, your wounds, the damaged items, and other relevant details. Get the witness's contact information as well. This supporting evidence helps establish negligence and calculate damages.
Exercise Caution When Making Statements: Use caution when providing information to the insurance provider or other parties. It's best to make conversations accurate and brief without assigning blame when there's no lawyer present.
Preserve Evidence: Keep any clothing, household goods, or personal objects harmed during the crash. Don't wash any damaged items. Save everything because it can all be used as the proof you need to back up your claim.
Maintain Up-to-Date Records: Document any physical or psychological discomfort you encounter after the event. Keep track of how the accident has affected your daily schedule in a notebook or computer file.
Consult a Livonia Personal Injury Attorney: These attorneys can defend your legal rights. Their broad legal knowledge allows them to pursue the most compensation for your losses.
Remember that each accident is different. Always put your health and safety first. Keeping that in mind, you can move on to the next stage of your personal injury case with a skilled lawyer representing you.
How Negligence Affects Personal Injury Claims
Michigan law governs claims made by individuals injured due to someone else's negligence. Negligence is a legal concept that occurs when someone fails to exercise the level of care that a reasonably cautious person would under similar circumstances. If you're considering filing a lawsuit, understand the burden of proof lies with you, the plaintiff. In other words, you must demonstrate that the defendant's negligent or unreasonable actions caused your injury.
How to Prove Negligence
The concept of negligence plays a central role in civil litigation. To be compensated, the plaintiff must show the defendant's fault. As the injured party, the court expects you to address the following four components:
Duty of Care: To file a personal injury claim, you must demonstrate that the person at fault is responsible for keeping you safe. For example, commercial truck drivers are expected to follow traffic laws to avoid causing harm to others.
Breach of Duty: After proving the defendant owed you a duty of care, you have to show they failed to fulfill their legal responsibility. One example might be a driver under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
Cause: This element links the defendant's carelessness and the plaintiff's injuries; for example, a drunk driver runs a stop sign and hits someone.
Damages: The harmed party must show the defendant's negligence resulted in losses, including medical expenses, missed income, and pain and distress.
There are challenges in demonstrating negligence. The process involves acquiring substantial evidence to support your claim. If you believe that someone's carelessness contributed to your injuries, get in touch with a Livonia personal injury lawyer. At The Law Offices of Christopher Trainor & Associates, we have the legal resources needed to get the best outcome.
The Purpose of Comparative Negligence
When someone is injured, it's often the case that they might have played some role in the accident that hurt them. Michigan uses a rule known as comparative negligence to handle these situations. This legal principle means that the amount of compensation an injured person can receive is reduced by the percentage of fault in the accident.
For example, the amount of compensation awarded to the plaintiff in a truck accident lawsuit is reduced by the assigned percentage of fault. Assume that they shared 30% of the blame. If their total damages are $100,000 in that scenario, their recovery drops to $70,000.
In this legal system, the 50% Bar Rule applies, meaning if a plaintiff is found to be 50% or more at fault for an accident, they are not eligible for compensation. This rule helps ensure that blame is distributed as equitably as possible. Essentially, it adjusts the damages awarded based on each party's level of responsibility for the accident.
However, insurance companies also use this rule as a strategy to reduce the amount they must pay out for claims. Having a skilled Livonia personal injury lawyer representing you will help make sure this does not happen to you.
Know the Statute of Limitations
Michigan Compiled Laws Section 600.5805 states that individuals with personal injuries must bring a claim within a span of three years following the injury. Regardless of the severity of your injuries, failing to make this claim within this time limit could result in you losing the right to pursue damages.
Book a free consultation with a personal injury attorney without delay. Your lawyer will guide you on the best steps to take next and help make sure you meet all deadlines.
Wrongful Death Claims
A wrongful death lawsuit arises when someone dies as a result of another party's wrongful act, negligence, or fault. This type of legal action compensates the deceased's family members or estate for their losses.
Here are some points about wrongful death claims in Michigan:
Who can file: The personal representative of the deceased person's estate is typically responsible for filing the wrongful death lawsuit. This representative acts on behalf of the deceased's family members, such as the spouse, children, parents, or siblings.
Types of damages recoverable: In a wrongful death claim in Michigan, the damages may include medical expenses incurred prior to death, funeral and burial costs, lost wages and benefits the deceased would have earned, prior pain and suffering of the deceased, loss of consortium, and the void left by the absence of companionship.
Procedure: The lawsuit is filed in a civil court. If the wrongful death was caused by a criminal act, such as homicide, it can lead to a separate criminal prosecution, but a wrongful death lawsuit is a civil action that seeks financial compensation, not criminal penalties.
The aim of a wrongful death claim is not only to provide financial support to the deceased's survivors but also to hold the responsible party accountable for their actions. We know that no amount of money could ever replace your loved one, but having the financial compensation you deserve can go a long way toward helping your family move forward from such a tragic event. Let our Livonia wrongful death lawyers help you and your family get justice for your untimely loss.
How to Build a Strong Personal Injury Case
Almost everything you say or do has the potential to make an impact on your case, and sometimes that impact is not necessarily positive. You should proceed with caution with everything you say, whether it’s to police or to an insurance adjuster. Having an attorney on your side from the beginning will help ensure you do not inadvertently say something that could harm your case. They can represent you in all aspects of communication, ranging from negotiating settlements to filing court documents and even representing you in trial if necessary.
To protect your health and strengthen your legal standing, you should take the following steps immediately after your personal injury incident occurs.
Report the Incident: Whether it's a slip-and-fall, a workplace accident, or an automobile collision, make sure the incident is reported. Depending on the specifics of the incident, you should report it to your employer, the store management, or the Livonia Police Department.
Gather Evidence: Take images or recordings of the site, your injuries, and any risks or situations that might have led to the incident, if possible. This visual evidence can have a huge impact on the outcome of your claim.
Gather Information: Request contact information from witnesses and anybody else connected to the incident. Their objective testimony could go a long way toward supporting your version of events.
Seek Medical Attention: Your health should always be your first priority. Even if your wounds are small, get medical attention as soon as possible. Certain symptoms may appear or worsen days later. Besides protecting your health, seeking immediate medical attention can also protect your ability to get fair compensation. The medical records created will help correlate the incident to your injury from day one.
Here are some vital records you should keep during the days and weeks following your injury occurring. All of this can be instrumental in making sure you get the compensation you deserve and will need to aid in your recovery after being injured, whether it was a car wreck, slip and fall, or something else.
Medical Records: Keep detailed records of all the diagnoses, therapies, and results related to your injury. Take notes throughout your visits with doctors, physical therapists, and other medical professionals.
Expenses: Maintain a record of every penny you spend on your wounds. Prescription costs, hospital expenses, and travel costs for doctor's appointments are all eligible to be compensated for. Keep track of the invoices for any equipment you need to purchase to help you heal.
Lost Wages: If your injury kept you from going to work, keep track of the money you lost. This covers any impact on your future earning potential as well as missed paychecks, bonuses, promotions, and raises.
Journal Your Recovery: Maintain a daily notebook where you document your degree of discomfort, progress toward healing, and how your injury affects your regular activities. This first-hand account demonstrates the impact of the damage on your life.
Remember that obtaining fair compensation is a journey, not a sprint. These steps lay the foundation for building a strong argument. Your Livonia personal injury attorney from Christopher Trainor & Associates can also help with each of these actions.
Total Compensation Available for Personal Injury Victims in Livonia, MI
If someone else's reckless action causes you harm, you may be able to recover damages for your losses. In personal injury lawsuits, typically, one of two types of recovery applies: non-economic damages and economic damages.
Non-Economic Damages
You can include the following kinds of intangible losses in your non-economic damages:
Pain and Suffering: You are experiencing pain and suffering as a result of your physical discomfort and mental turmoil.
Loss of Consortium: Occurrences that erode the ties that bind you to your close relatives.
Mental anguish: Emotional pain can take many forms, such as anxiety, sadness, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Economic Damages
Here are some of the most common economic damages:
Medical expenses: These cover both immediate treatments and continuous therapy.
Lost Wages: Compense for any time you missed work due to an injury.
Property damage: This type of insurance pays for the price of repairing or replacing damaged property.
Naturally, monetary compensation cannot fully compensate for the mental and physical anguish you have endured. However, a fair settlement can help ease your financial burden. Personal injury lawyers are skilled at accurately calculating the total cost of your damages. This capability guarantees you receive the compensation you deserve for your recovery.
Have you had any severe injuries? After an accident, you will likely face a difficult period of time fraught with medical treatment, time off work, and a long recovery. In order to proceed, get legal counsel. A knowledgeable personal injury attorney in Livonia can manage each step of the claims process on your behalf. With their support, you can focus on healing, knowing your case is in good hands.
Need Help Handling Your Livonia Personal Injury Claim?
Do you find it challenging to regain control of your life after sustaining a catastrophic injury? Our team of personal injury lawyers understands such struggles, including stress, missed income, and medical expenses. We are here to help you in your trying time.
At the Law Offices of Christopher Trainor & Associates, we work hard to ensure our clients get fair treatment after they’ve been injured due to someone else’s negligence. We have proudly been serving the people of Livonia, Detroit, and all surrounding areas for decades. Our empathetic and relentless legal approach has resulted in over $250 million in awards and settlements for our clients. We live and work here, just like you. Let us pursue compensation for your injuries.
Request a Free Consultation With a Skilled Attorney
Don't hesitate to call us at 248-886-8650 to schedule a complimentary consultation. We have Livonia personal injury lawyers ready to discuss your situation. We'll fight for your rights and strive for successful results so you may move on. We take all personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, so you will never be asked to pay for our services unless we win your case.
