Getting injured in an accident can have devastating impacts on your day-to-day life, whether you sustained the injury at work, on someone else’s property, or in a car accident. Fortunately, in such cases, you have the right to pursue legal action and secure the necessary funds for recovery from the guilty party. In some instances, though, it’s tough to know whether you have a valid case or not. Contacting an experienced Virginia Beach personal injury lawyer at Rutter Mills will work with you to identify whether you do or do not have a justified claim.
What Makes a Personal Injury Claim?
Accidents often result in physical, mental, or emotional injuries that profoundly affect victims’ quality of life. Most of the time, determining whether the victim has a valid claim is a relatively straightforward endeavor. Other times, this task can become tricky.
For instance, there is a high concentration of adrenaline running through your nervous system in car accidents. This may shadow sensations of pain, leaving you unaware of injuries that may have occurred. You may find out far too late that a sore joint or psychological trauma was caused by the collision in such cases. It is unlikely that you’ll expire the statute of limitations before this discovery. Yet, the offending driver would have the grounds to claim that separate events caused your injury due to the excess of time passed.
For this reason, you must always seek medical attention immediately following an accident. This is the first step to learning whether you have a personal injury case – and the first step to ensuring your safety. Once a medical professional has evaluated you, work with your personal injury lawyer to verify that your case meets the following qualifications:
- The guilty party was behaving negligently.
- The guilty party’s negligence was the direct cause of your injury.
- The guilty party’s negligent actions also resulted in compensatory damages.
Notice that these criteria center on the fact that you are in the victim’s position. On the other hand, suppose you were the negligent individual. If so, you might still have been injured, but the case will unfold quite differently.
Sustaining Injuries as the Guilty Party
As a victim of an accident, you are entitled to compensation. Depending on the type of accident, this is typically secured by filing an insurance and legal claim. The guilty party is then given the responsibility of turning over the funds necessary to support your medical recovery and any repairs for damages or property replacements. As you can see, the litigation process related to personal injury cases is quite different from the defendant’s side.
As the defendant, you would no longer be entitled to compensation. If you are found to be at fault for an accident that inflicts harm on another person, your right to file a claim in pursuit of compensation is forfeit. Since you were behaving negligently, you do not have the grounds for a valid personal injury case. You must then provide the funds to cover your own damages.
If you doubt whether you have a personal injury case or not, contact an experienced personal injury attorney. Their guidance will enlighten you to your incident’s legal implications, and you can be sure of how to pursue a resolution for the damages incurred.
