How to Prepare For a Personal Injury Case and What To Expect
August 12, 2024
Maybe you sustained an injury due to a slip and fall at your local home improvement store. Maybe you’ve been in a car accident that wasn’t your fault and are suffering from some broken bones. Or perhaps a dangerous dog who was off-leash chased you during your morning jog and took a hunk of flesh from your calf, requiring a dozen stitches.
What can you do in these types of cases, which are known in the legal world as personal injury matters? Is there some recourse where you can get compensation for your out-of-pocket costs, as well as for compensation for pain and suffering?
In fact, there is legal recourse. California Civil Code 1714 states that a person can be held responsible for injuries resulting from their reckless, negligent, or intentional actions, even if they didn’t mean to cause harm. If you can prove another party caused your injury and losses, you may be entitled to recover economic damages, non-economic damages, and, in certain cases, punitive damages.
Proving Your Case
In order to prove your case, you need to prevail on four elements:
- The defendant owed you a duty of care
- The defendant breached that duty
- There is direct causation between the breach of duty and your injuries
- You suffered compensable damages as a result
Showing that a duty of care exists is foundational in civil law to proving negligence. A duty of care exists when there is reasonable foreseeability that harm may result to a person by another’s action or inaction. If a person breaches that duty of care, they will be found guilty of negligence and financially liable for the result.
The specific requirements of the duty of care vary and depend on the circumstances of the case. Drivers have a duty to follow traffic laws and operate their vehicles safely. Premises owners, such as retail shows and sports arenas, have a duty to keep their premises safe for people who are on their property lawfully and to warn of dangers that aren’t apparent. Doctors have a duty of care to their patients.
To prepare your case, in conjunction with your Santa Ana personal injury lawyer, you will first need to gather all pertinent information. First, you will need to put together evidence to prove the facts. Let’s say you’re planning to litigate the dog bite scenario. You’ll need to gather information on the date, the time, and the location of the dog bite. Hopefully, there will be some witnesses who can be interviewed by your attorney and attest to the fact that the dog was roaming free. Your attorney will also likely interview the dog owner and neighbors who can fill in more factual details about the neighbor and the dog. .
Then, you will need to pull together all of your medical information. Hopefully, you will have pictures of your injury. Since you have stitches, you will have gone to the hospital or to a doctor’s office, and they will have a medical file that can be put into evidence.
You will also need to prove your damages. Economic damages include such things as your out-of-pocket costs, including doctor’s bills, rehabilitation charges, and pharmacy charges. Economic damages are pretty straightforward and are just a calculation of these costs. Also included in economic damages are lost wages if you had to miss work while you were recovering.
Non-economic damages are for pain and suffering, emotional distress and loss of companionship. These are more speculative and harder to quantify.
Finally, you and your lawyer might decide to seek punitive damages. These are monetary damages that can be recovered in particularly egregious cases. In California, plaintiffs have recovered punitive damages in dog bite cases where the owner has ordered the attack or where a dog has previously bitten others. Under California law, although there is no specific cap on punitive damages, the courts have said that if punitive damages are awarded, they must have a reasonable relationship to the other damages.
What To Expect
You should expect and be prepared for the fact that the defendant and his or her lawyer will attempt to disprove or rebut your facts and your damages calculations. For example, again using the dog bite example, they may present evidence from the dog owner showing that you provoked the dog or that you opened a gate that allowed the dog to come out. They will likely also try to rebut your dollar claim for non-economic damages, showing case law from other California cases that your estimates are too high for pain and suffering.
You should also expect that there will be settlement negotiations before your case proceeds to trial. It’s estimated that nearly 95% of personal injury cases are settled, though it’s difficult to verify that percentage as most settlements are subject to non-disclosure agreements and are not formally recorded. It’s important to have a strong set of facts, verifiable receipts, and a principled basis for your non-economic damages calculation in order to have the best position possible, either as you negotiate with the defendant’s insurance carrier or make your case in front of a judge or jury.
Contact a Santa Ana Personal Injury Lawyer
Personal injuries are often traumatic and can turn your life and the lives of your family upside down. In addition to the pain and suffering that can result from the injury itself, you may be out of work for a period of time or be unable to do the type of work you have been engaged in. You may be put in a terrible financial position due to medical bills or lost wages. And your injuries may be permanent.
Here at the Law Offices of Benjamin Arsenian, we have experience in all types of personal injury cases, including elder abuse, 18-wheeler accidents, wrongful death, and other types of personal injury. We are strong and aggressive in the preparation and prosecution of our cases so that you can be made whole. Contact us today for a free consultation.