Personal injury law encompasses a broad umbrella of legal situations in which, at its simplest, someone is injured and someone else is believed to be at fault. The responsible party’s insurance company typically would offer a settlement to cover the injured person’s medical bills, with their goal being to pay as little as possible.
Personal injury attorneys, therefore, represent injured parties to get a fair settlement, whether that means negotiating with the other party’s insurance company or in a lawsuit to get an appropriate court judgment.
If you need a personal injury lawyer now, please call us today at (904) 251-1111.
Personal Injury Areas of Practice
Here are several of the most common types of personal injury cases, each of which are specialties of our law office.
Vehicle Accidents: Car, Truck, and Motorcycle
Vehicle accidents are among the most common types of personal injury events, including car, truck, and motorcycle accidents—and these, unfortunately, are all too common. According to a 2020 report from Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, in Florida alone, there were 338,765 traffic collisions—139,352 of those accidents had reported injuries and 2,995 involved a fatality.
Victims of vehicular accidents quickly realize how insurance companies don’t have their best interests in mind, and these victims have the right to seek full compensation for many kinds of damages. This is where personal injury attorneys come in—and it’s important to choose one with experience and a track record of success.
When taking car accidents specifically as an example, the attorneys at our law firm have more than 240 years of combined experience when seeking jury verdicts with insurance settlements of $1 million or more. When cases go to court, our law office has that same level of experience in representing clients where settlements exceed $10 million—and we also prosecute small cases as vigorously as we do the large ones.
When an accident occurs between a large commercial truck and a passenger car, the size and weight of the truck does not portend well for the people in the car. In fact, 11% of vehicle-related fatal crashes involved a large truck, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, with 96% of the fatalities being occupants of the passenger car. So, truck accidents can be much more deadly than ones involving only cars, and the case can get more complex, potentially including the truck driver, the truck’s manufacturer, the owner of the truck’s freight and more.
The truck accident attorneys in our law firm are highly experienced in representing victims of truck accidents. The same is true with motorcycle accidents, where riders can be extremely vulnerable to serious, even catastrophic, injuries. Negligent drivers don’t always see motorcycle riders on the road or are sometimes driving under the influence.
Wrongful Death
Wrongful death cases also fall under personal injury law. Specifics of what qualifies as a wrongful death can vary but, in general, factors include another person causing an accident that led to the death of a loved one by acting in a way that was negligent or wrong, and being at fault. A spouse of the deceased person—or child or other dependent/beneficiary—can seek legal redress to receive damages.
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
Examples of nursing home abuse and neglect can range from unsanitary conditions in your loved one’s room (or public areas of the building) to personal hygiene problems; and/or a shortage of help at the nursing home, which can lead to unanswered calls for help by your loved one. In other instances, you may have concerns about inadequate food or hydration or behavioral changes in your loved one (social, emotional, or psychological). Or, there may be more and more unexplained injuries or complaints from your loved one that are out of character.
Nursing homes are required to maintain the proper level of care and, when that doesn’t happen, it can rise to the level of a personal injury case.
Workers’ Compensation
Workers’ compensation cases also fit in the personal injury umbrella, with job-related injuries having the potential to be completely life-changing. At our law office, our personal injury lawyers are experts in Florida’s workers’ compensation laws, along with regulations, each of which can be complex.
Social Security Disability
When someone needs to file a Social Security disability claim, it’s vital to fill it out completely and accurately. Improper applications are often turned down, it’s highly beneficial to have an experienced attorney at your side to help you fill out your paperwork and navigate the process, whether it’s from the initial application or as part of the appeals process.
When looking at 2018 figures, just slightly more than one-third of disability claims (37.5%) were approved after the initial application. After that denial, applicants have 60 days to request an appeal, but less than half of them do so. A percentage of them certainly left money behind on the table, although there is no way to know how many of that group could have gotten benefits.
As far as the people who do appeal, more than half of them are successful. Experienced personal injury lawyers can streamline the process.
Additional Areas of Practice
They include:
- Premises liability cases
- Product liability cases
- Traumatic brain injury cases
- Spinal cord injury cases
- Medical malpractice cases
- Boating and watercraft accidents
- Dog bite injuries
In each of these cases, having the right law firm at your side can be invaluable.
Choosing Harrell & Harrell, P.A.
When you need an experienced, dedicated personal injury attorney in Florida, we invite you to contact us for a no cost/no obligation consultation. Factors we consider include how the injuries impact your ability to earn income; costs of future medical care, rehabilitation, and physical therapy; costs of retraining; your emotional state; and the severity of pain and suffering. To discuss how our personal injury lawyers may be able to help you, please contact us online or call us at (904) 251-1111.