Florida Personal Injury Laws

Personal Injury Litigation Process

I’m Alexander Knapp from the Dolman Law Group, Clearwater, auto accident attorney. Oftentimes when new clients come through our doors they’re confused. They’ve never been through a personal injury case before and they want to know what the process entails. Very simple, there are five basic steps to a personal injury case.

Step One

Step one is the accident and the ensuing medical care that the client has to undergo to make himself feel better.

Step Two

Step two, your attorney will collect all of your medical records and submit a demand on your behalf to the insurance company in an attempt to resolve your case.

Step Three

The third step, we enter into a negotiation with the insurance company in an attempt to amicably resolve your case for both sides.

Step Four and Five

Step four, should we fail to amicably resolve the case with the insurance company, we’re forced to file a lawsuit with the court and enter into the litigation process, and step five, should the case not resolve during litigation, a trial. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about your personal injury claim, feel free to contact me, Alexander Knapp, at the Dolman Law Group. Visit our YouTube channel. I greatly appreciate your time, look forward to seeing you soon, and click on our button here to subscribe to our channel. Thank you.

By: Alexander Knapp

Paying Back Your Health Insurance Company

If you’ve been hurt in an accident and you have health insurance, your health insurance likely has paid some or all of your medical bills related to your injuries. In that event, you likely are going to be required to pay back or reimburse your health insurance company for whatever money your insurance company has paid out on your behalf. The reason for that is, here in the state of Florida, a health insurance company who has paid benefits for you typically has a statutory lien against any money that you recover in your case. So if you, through the assistance of your attorney, recover money for your accident case, then you may have to take some of that money and pay it back to your health insurance company.

Accident With A Big Rig Truck

When you are in an accident with a big rig tractor trailer truck and you consider what are those initial steps you need to take. Number one, get the best medical care you can get and get it fast. Number two, report the incident to your own insurance company. Number three, begin the research immediately to find, to locate and to obtain a very experienced and highly qualified big rig tractor trailer truck lawyer to represent you, so that he or she can navigate you through all of the steps you need to take over the next several days. And finally, preserve the evidence. Meaning, preserve the vehicle or vehicles, preserve anything you can. And if you can get photographs, or video, or have someone do that make sure you do that right away.

Value Of A Case

Most clients or most consumers always want to know how much their case is worth, but most lawyers will tell you that they don’t know what your case is worth. There’s two values to your case: the amount that an insurance company is voluntarily willing to pay to settle your case, or the amount that a jury will later tell you your case is worth after hearing all the evidence in your case. And while most cases do settle before trial, the overall economic and non-economic damages in your case must be assessed by not only your attorneys but also the insurance company or the defense lawyers and then hopefully the parties can come to a reasonable compromise or an agreement on the value of the case for settlement purposes. If not, the case will go to trial and a jury will determine what they believe the case is worth after hearing all of the evidence presented by all sides of the case.

Witnessed A Car Accident

First, it’s important to contact the police. If you witness an automobile accident in Florida, you could be the only person that has relevant and material information to that particular crash that will help the police later, or will help lawyers later, or claims adjustors later, be able to determine who is at fault in the claims handling process. That’s the first thing. You absolutely need to make sure that you contact the police.

Second, if you safely can, you want to document what happened as much as possible. Identify the vehicles involved, witnesses who may have seen what happened, physical evidence that may be at the scene, debris in the roadway, skid marks. And in this day and age with technology and camera phones, if you can safely do it, it’s important that you document as best as you can any evidence there at the scene to help in the claims handling process down the road.

Determining If You Have A Case

Determining whether or not you have a case in Florida in any instance where there’s been a brain injury is a process of having your attorney evaluate and assess liability or fault. The next issue is an assessment of causation – meaning that the wrongdoing of the defendant, was it a cause of the brain injury – and then determining what the losses or damages are. This is something your attorney must do through the evaluation of such things as medical records, and speaking and conferring with experts who assess all of the documents and evidence in the case. Then, your lawyer will know whether or not you have a valid or viable brain injury case to file.

Defective Product Case With Limited Evidence

It is very difficult to pursue a product liability case without having the actual product that is alleged to be defective. Unfortunately, all too often, folks will approach our law firm about pursuing a product defect case or a dangerous medical device case, but that device itself or that product itself has been destroyed or is no longer in existence. If you believe that you’ve been injured by a defective product, you must take all steps to preserve that evidence which will become crucial in the case because both the defense and your own lawyers will have experts that will look at that device and determine whether or not it’s in fact defective. So, it’s very difficult to pursue a product defect case without the actual device that is alleged to be defective.

Insurance Companies Evaluating Your Losses

Insurance companies will evaluate your losses based on your economic and what we call your noneconomic damages. Your economic damages; what are your medical bills from the date of the crash up until the time of the trial or until the time of the settlement conference and what are your medical bills in the future that a doctor can determine are reasonably related to the crash itself. Also, what are your economic losses for missing work or your wage loss. Have you lost work as a result of this crash in the past, will you lose work in the future? So that’s the economic component that the insurance company will assess.

Aside from that is the noneconomic or the human damages element; what is the pain and suffering that you have experienced in the past and into the future related to a crash. What is your mental anguish, your loss of enjoyment of life? And while those damages are not as easily quantifiable as your economic damages, the insurance company will try to place a value on all of those damages together and that will determine what kind of money they may be willing to offer you to settle a case.

Can you recover damages for aggravation of injuries that preexisted an accident in Florida?

Absolutely. Our jury instructions tell juries to do so. We get questions like these all the time. If you have questions about your accident and your claims, call us, 1800-49-LEGAL.

By: Mel Wright