Personal Injury Claims in Pennsylvania

Injuries resulting from someone else’s negligence, recklessness, or intentional act of someone else, can be devastating and life-changing. You deserve compensation for your injuries. No amount of money can compensate for the pain and suffering you’ve experienced, but recovering financial compensation can relieve you of an economic burden. Compensation can allow you to focus on what’s important: healing and recovery.

Personal injury claims usually require dealing with insurance companies that have teams of aggressive defense lawyers whose job is to find ways to deny or reduce your compensation. Without an attorney on your side who knows how to fight back, victims of personal injury are often bullied and deceived into accepting less than their claim is worth.

Insurance companies may deny your injury exists or attempt to blame you for causing the injury yourself. These attacks can feel personal and humiliating to a person already mourning their losses after a life-altering injury. Attorney Kelly Adams will advocate for your rights and help you recover the maximum compensation.

Types of Personal Injury Claims

Auto Accident: Car crashes are the most frequent reason for personal injury claims. Claims are usually based on the negligence or recklessness of another driver.

Slip and Fall: To claim damages for a slip and fall injury, the victim must show that the fall was due to dangerous conditions caused by someone else.

Animal Attacks: Dog bites can cause devastating injuries, sometimes leading to permanent disfigurement. In Pennsylvania, a dog’s owner is automatically responsible for the dog’s aggressive actions.

Assault: If your injury is due to the violent act of someone else, such as a knife or gunshot wound, you are entitled to compensation. Even if the at-fault party escapes criminal conviction, you may still be compensated in a civil suit.

This is not a complete list of events that can result in a personal injury claim, but some of the most common. If you have suffered an injury that was someone else’s fault, you should meet with a personal injury lawyer like Kelly Adams, who can evaluate your case and estimate the value of your claim.

Common Defenses to Personal Injury Claims

There are many ways insurance companies and defense lawyers will attempt to prevent you from recovering the compensation you’re entitled to.

Comparative Negligence: One of the most common personal injury defenses is blaming the victim for causing the accident. In Pennsylvania, if you are 51% responsible for the event that caused your injury, you are barred from recovering compensation. If you are found partially, but less than 50%, at fault, that finding will reduce your recovery in proportion to your share of the blame.

For example, if a court decides you were 10% responsible for an accident, a $100,000 award would be reduced to $90,000. Never accept blame for your accident; seek legal counsel if you’re being accused of fault.

Assumption of Risk: This defense is most common in slip and fall claims but is sometimes relevant in other cases. This defense asserts that the victim should have been able to avoid the accident because it was an “open and obvious” risk.

For example, slipping on a wet floor clearly marked by orange warning signs would probably be considered an obvious risk the victim should have avoided. On the other hand, slipping on vegetable oil that leaked out of the container could be unavoidable. In these cases, store security footage and witness testimony can prove that the risk was not obvious.

Denial of an Injury: There is no legal term for this defense, but “invisible” injuries, like traumatic brain injury, soft tissue injury, and psychological injury like PTSD, are sometimes denied by defense lawyers. At-fault parties have been known to use a victim’s social media photographs showing them engaging in normal behavior to deny an injury exists. Attorney Adams can help prove your injuries are real and refute frustrating assertions like this.

Damages in Personal Injury Claims

Some injury damages are evident and easy to calculate: medical bills or lost wages due to missing time at work. Others are less apparent and difficult to appraise. Pain and suffering, disfigurement, lost future earning potential, your injury’s impact on your family, and more don’t come with a price tag. These damages are harder to evaluate; victims may not realize they can ask to be compensated for them.

An experienced personal injury attorney like Kelly Adams will interview you and get a complete picture of your losses and will fight to recover all the damages you are entitled to.

Schedule a Free Consultation with Personal Injury Attorney Adams

If you’re injured, you’ve already suffered enough; you shouldn’t have to bear the additional pain of pleading for reasonable compensation with an insurance company. Attorney Adams will fight for you so you can focus on resting and recovering from your injuries. Call her today at (610) 222-6122 and let her handle the legal proceedings and negotiation so you don’t have to.