What is a personal injury? It would be easy to say that it’s simply something physical, but a traumatic incident can leave more scars than just the ones that can be seen and soothed with ice or heat. When an injury is mostly physical, it can affect your ability to work. This might result in a loss of income lasting several weeks or months, which could in turn lead to emotional or further health troubles as a result of the income loss. Whether you were injured on the job or at home, you could be entitled to compensation even if no one but chance is obviously at fault.
Determine Who Is Responsible
However, most of the time in personal injury cases, someone is obviously responsible for your injury. Hiring a injury lawyer in Ohio should be one of the first steps you take after suffering an injury. If you suffer a severe illness as a result of a doctor’s uncharacteristic carelessness, this doesn’t mean that the doctor is a bad person. He or she is still responsible for what happened to you even if he or she didn’t intend for it to happen. The same is true when a neighbor’s dog bites you or a loved one. It might very well be that that pet is normally docile, and was provoked by you or a loved one. That doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve some sort of compensation for what happened to you.
Don’t Let Them Off the Hook
Seeking monetary compensation for a personal injury can be a stressful experience. Responsible parties will do whatever they can to avoid paying more than they feel is appropriate. It may be that they feel no compensation is justified, but in many cases, you will find that they would rather settle than have you take your case to trial. In cases like that, or even when insurance companies are involved, the simple presence of a personal injury lawyer in the room with you might be enough to convince them to settle your claim rather than fight it out. A court battle would likely make them look bad, even if whatever happened was merely an accident.
Know Your Injury’s Worth
You should also think about what your injury is worth. Boiling down a severe injury into purely monetary terms is a difficult enterprise. Doing so risks making you more unsympathetic than when you’re purely occupying a role as a victim. It is more risky to pursue damages resulting from emotional trauma than it is to seek damages resulting from a physical injury people can see and actively sympathize with. A personal injury lawyer can help you figure out the best and surest way to not only seek compensation resulting from your claim, but actually collect on it. You can count on The Donahey Law Firm to help with any personal injury legal issues.
