What is a Personal Injury?

A "personal injury" claim refers to the legal claim that arises when you suffer an injury due to the negligence or intentional misconduct of someone else.  The person who injured you must have had an obligation of due care directed toward you (i.e. the obligation of all motorists to drive their vehicles safely), and the harm you suffered must have been a foreseeable result of that person violating this obligation of due care.

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Through a personal injury claim, an accident victim can recover compensation for their economic losses.  This would include such things as past medical expenses, future medical expenses, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, and property damage.  In addition to economic losses, one can recover "general" damages, which are damages for the pain, suffering and mental anguish caused by the injury that was suffered.  In cases of extremely gross negligence or intentionally inflicted harm, a third category of damages is available called "punitive" damages.  Punitive damages are damages above and beyond the accident victim's actual losses that are awarded to punish the wrongdoer and to deter them from acting the same way again in the future.

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Types of Personal Injury Cases

Phillips and associates has been representing accident victims in a wide range of personal injury actions since 1991. Our firm handles cases arising from all forms of vehicular accidents, including motorcycles, commercial vehicles, Uber and Lyft.  We have developed the specific skills and professional relationships to expertly handle catastrophic losses, retaining the forensic services of leading physicians, life care planners, accident reconstructionists, economists, nursing service providers and other experts, whenever needed to prove the monetary recovery needed to compensate seriously injured clients.

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Other types of personal injury cases we handle include those arising from negligently maintained business properties (often 'slip-and-fall's), medical malpractice (for which we retain the finest academic physicians for their analysis), product liability (such as products found to cause cancer or other maladies), and dog bite serious injury.  

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How Do I Know If I Have a Case?

Many considerations determine whether you have a case worth pursuing, but this fundamentally breaks down to issues pertaining to liability and damages.  Liability means, 'whose fault was this?'  Often liability is very clear, the best example of which is a rear-end collision at a mid-phase red light.  But other situations are more often contested, such as whether a car was turning into an oncoming vehicle as a traffic light was turning red. 

Our office utilizes the most sophisticated methods to determine liability.  In traffic collision cases, for example, we may retain an accident reconstructionist to assess the meaning of crush profiles and information contained on the vehicle's Event Data Recorder.

Other factors also need to be considered. For instance, who are the parties and what insurance coverage or assets do they have that could be used to pay for a settlement or judgment in your case? What possible defenses to the allegations of negligence exist? Did the defendant's negligence directly result in your harm? All of these questions can be resolved through a free consultation with our law firm.

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Phillips & Associates prides itself on having the principle attorneys, Patrick and John, readily accessible by phone, seven days a week, to immediately answer questions.  We handle all of our cases on a pure contingency fee basis, so there are no upfront costs whatsoever. And if there is no settlement reward, there is never any legal fee. Contact us today to determine what rights you may have arising from your accident.