Injured by a Negligent Driver? What Are Your Rights?
If you or someone you love sustains a catastrophic injury in a car accident in the Salt Lake City area – now or in the future – because another motorist was negligent, get legal help immediately and protect your rights by calling the offices of a Salt Lake City car accident lawyer.
Catastrophic injuries can be sudden, tragic, and life-changing. Unlike typical injuries that heal in a few days or weeks, catastrophic injuries are long-term or permanent injuries that may result in partial or complete disability and the need for lifelong medical care.
Your medical costs for a catastrophic injury are substantial, so if another person’s negligence is the reason for your catastrophic injury, you have the right to substantial compensation. A Salt Lake City catastrophic injury attorney can help you recover that compensation.
What Should You Know About Catastrophic Car Accidents?
Catastrophic injuries include but are not limited to spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, burn injuries, injuries that require amputation, fractures, nerve damage, and blindness. Catastrophic injuries happen in many ways, but the leading cause is traffic accidents.
Almost any car accident may result in a catastrophic injury. When a catastrophic injury is not directly life-threatening, it may nevertheless cause organ loss or damage, blindness, disfigurement, the loss of a limb, or paralysis.
What Are the Costs of Catastrophic Injuries?
For most families, the physical, psychological, and financial costs of a catastrophic injury can be devastating. Catastrophic injuries usually require lengthy hospitalizations and continuing medical attention. Your costs may include, but will not be limited to:
- multiple surgeries
- prescription medications
- home or institutionalized nursing care
- physical therapy
- counseling
- medical equipment (for example, portable oxygen or a wheelchair)
- transportation costs
How Will Your Accident Lawyer Assist You?
If a negligent, reckless, or intoxicated driver catastrophically injures you in a Utah car accident, you will need the advice and services of a Salt Lake City car accident lawyer who will:
- gather evidence, investigate the accident, and identify the liable party or parties
- negotiate for the maximum available compensation amount
- take your catastrophic injury case to trial if your claim cannot be settled out-of-court
Do not speak with the other driver’s insurance company or sign any insurance documents without consulting your attorney. Do not take a first settlement offer. Your attorney will do the talking on your behalf and negotiate for a fair and generous settlement.
What Will You and Your Attorney Have to Prove?
If you take legal action, your attorney will develop a strategy to recover your compensation. In catastrophic car accident cases in Utah, the injured victim or “plaintiff” and that plaintiff’s attorney must prove:
- The defendant – the allegedly negligent party – owed the plaintiff a “duty of care.”
- The defendant acted negligently, breaching that duty of care.
- The plaintiff’s catastrophic injury was the direct result of that negligence.
- The plaintiff should recover compensation for losses and damages.
Your attorney may introduce as evidence:
- your medical records
- the written police accident report
- eyewitness and expert witness testimony or statements
- video or photographs of the accident or accident scene
What Can a Catastrophic Injury Victim Recover?
A catastrophic injury victim loses the ability to earn income while simultaneously incurring substantial medical expenses. When someone requires lifelong treatment and care, that person must recover the maximum compensation amount available.
If another party is liable for your catastrophic injury, Utah entitles you to compensation for your lost wages and projected future lost wages, your current and anticipated future medical costs, your personal pain and suffering, and other injury-related losses and damages.
Will Your Catastrophic Injury Claim Go to Trial?
Most catastrophic injury claims are settled privately, but if no acceptable settlement offer is forthcoming or liability for your injury is in dispute, your Salt Lake City catastrophic injury attorney will take your claim to trial.
At an injury trial, your lawyer may call on expert witnesses – a medical expert or an accident reconstruction authority, for example – to provide a statement or testimony in support of your claim.
Your lawyer will explain to the jurors why the other driver owed you a duty of care and how the driver breached that duty and caused your injury. Your lawyer will then explain why jurors should find in your favor and require the other driver’s insurance company to compensate you.
What Else is Important to Know About Catastrophic Injury Cases?
In Utah, the deadline for bringing a personal injury claim based on a car accident is usually four years, but you cannot wait four years – or even four weeks – to take your catastrophic injury case to a Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer.
If you are injured by a reckless, negligent, or intoxicated driver, call for or seek medical assistance at once. After you’ve been examined by a medical provider, treated, and released, contact a personal injury lawyer immediately.
Your lawyer should have the opportunity to examine the evidence in the case before it can be altered, contaminated, or lost, and your lawyer should also speak with any witnesses before their memories fade.
Bring Your Catastrophic Injury Claim to William Enoch Andrews Injury Lawyer
How can you pay an attorney if you can’t work and your medical bills are mounting up? Relax. Attorney William Enoch Andrews will handle your claim on a contingent fee basis. You will pay no lawyer’s fee in advance or until you recover compensation.
With more than two decades of personal injury experience, attorney William Enoch Andrews advises and represents catastrophic injury victims in the Salt Lake City area and throughout Utah. William Enoch Andrews has extensive experience resolving the most complicated catastrophic injury cases, and he has built a reputation for outstanding client service.
Let William Enoch Andrews fight on your behalf. To begin the personal injury process or learn more about your rights as a victim of negligence, call William Enoch Andrews Injury Lawyer at 385-483-4703 to schedule a free, initial 15-minute phone consultation with no obligation.
