5 Occasions When You Must Hire a Personal Injury Attorney

5 Occasions When You Must Hire a Personal Injury Attorney

You probably don’t look forward to the day when you must hire a personal injury attorney. If you do, it likely means that something unfortunate has occurred. Now, you need to hold the individual or entity responsible for who did this to you.

There are certain occasions, though, where you might feel like it’s just not worth it to hire a personal injury attorney. Maybe you don’t feel like it’s clear that someone else caused your injury. Perhaps you think taking them to court is more trouble than it’s worth.

It’s always your decision whether you want to hire an attorney and bring a lawsuit against an entity or individual. However, here are some situations where you should do so.

A Reckless Driver Hit You

You should hire a personal injury lawyer when a vehicle strikes you, and you know the driver acted recklessly. Maybe they:

  • Hit you when you were in a crosswalk
  • Ran a red light and hit you
  • Failed a breathalyzer after hitting you

You can hire a personal injury attorney if the driver hits you while you’re walking or if you’re in your car. In either case, if you sustain injuries, and it’s obvious it was their fault, their insurance should pay for it.

Some drivers only have the minimum insurance amount, which doesn’t cover all your medical bills. If you know it was the other driver’s fault, there’s no reason not to hold them accountable for what they did. If they drove recklessly, they need to pay things like their surgical bills, physical therapy bills, etc.

If You’re Facing Depression Following an Injury

Perhaps you’re facing some severe depression after another driver hit you, or if someone else did something that harmed you. If you know beyond any doubt that they were responsible for what happened, you can hire a lawyer and bring a lawsuit against them. You should do that because:

  • You can use that money to pay for therapy sessions
  • You might use that money to go on antidepressants if you feel the situation warrants it

Depression another person caused isn’t a physical injury, but it can be just as damaging as one. You might struggle to force yourself out of bed in the morning to tackle your routine, even after you have healed physically.

If you know the injury caused this you to feel this way, you can bring a suit against the individual or entity who caused it. You have a good chance of winning, provided you can get a jury to believe how badly this has impacted your life.

If a Defective Product Caused the Injury

Some companies put out products they know are defective. They do this because they feel like they can sell enough of the product, and most of them will be okay. The ones that malfunction can hurt people, but they’re making enough money to cover the lawsuits.

This is a coldhearted way to think, but that’s sometimes the corporate mentality. If you can establish that the company knew the product you used was dangerous, and it harmed you, you could win a big lawsuit. You’ll undoubtedly need a personal injury lawyer for that.

It might also turn out that the company did not know about the defective product. Their conduct is not so egregious then. Still, if the product hurts you, you deserve some money for your pain and suffering.

If You Hurt Yourself at Work, and Your Employer Refuses to Pay

You might also suffer a work-related injury. You should be eligible for worker’s compensation, provided your reckless behaviour did not cause the mishap.

Assuming that what happened was not your fault, you can get worker’s comp, and the company should welcome you back once you heal if that’s what you want. However, maybe they won’t give you workers comp for some reason. It could also be that they’re trying to get rid of you because you’re at home recuperating.

In either instance, a lawyer can help you with that. Some companies try to get away with things because they feel like the worker won’t follow up and hold them accountable.

You should definitely do so. Not only can you win and get money to pay for your medical bills, rent, food, utilities, etc., it also sends the companies a message about what happens when they try to get away with these sorts of devious tactics.

You Hurt Yourself in a Business Due to Employee Incompetence

There are also several ways you might hurt yourself on a business’s property. Maybe you’re in a store, and you slip on a wet floor and fall. If the store failed to put up a wet floor sign, you should hire a lawyer, because that’s a classic lawsuit scenario.

Maybe a store employee was stocking a shelf, and they dropped something on you as you passed by underneath. This is another time where it’s pretty apparent who caused your injury.

You can sue the store chain, and they will probably settle. They’ll want to take care of the problem before they get too much negative publicity.

Perhaps you’re in a parking lot, and a store employee hits you with a shopping cart. That’s another time you can bring a lawsuit against the company for whom they work, and possibly against that individual as well if you feel that they acted recklessly. Maybe the employee was talking on their phone at the time and was not paying attention to where they were going.

Personal injury lawsuits can get ugly. The opposing party may try to discredit you in various ways if they think they can sway the jury. They may want to settle instead if they feel like you have an airtight case, and they want to get the litigious part out of the way as quickly as possible.

In any of the scenarios that we described, make sure you have a competent lawyer who has helped clients with cases similar to yours.