All You Need to Know About Accident, Injury & Compensation in Southern California!

Accident injury law and the house rules at a Pottery Barn rest on the same basic principle: You break it, you buy it. We all make mistakes and should accept responsibility for them. At a store, accepting responsibility means paying for the designed coffee mug that was dropped. Following an accident, accepting responsibility means paying compensation for economic losses, such as medical bills, and noneconomic losses, such as pain and suffering.

Back then, factory owners described an injury as an accident to shift blame from their dangerous facilities to “careless” workers. Those victims had to accept that outcome. However, today’s accident injury victims can partner with a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer. An attorney evaluates your case, advocates for you, and keeps accident injury claims moving through the complex legal process. The difference is in the bottom line. The average attorney-negotiated settlement is over three times higher than the average non-attorney-negotiated settlement.

Accident

Car crashes, unintentional poisonings, and falls are the top three causes of injury-related death in California. These incidents aren’t “accidents,” at least in most cases.

Driver error, not an unavoidable “accident,” causes about 98 percent of vehicle collisions in California. The two main kinds of driver error are:

• Aggressive Driving: Speed, the most common and dangerous form of aggressive driving, multiplies the risk of a crash and the force in a collision. Motorists who drive at unsafe speeds, which may be below the posted limit, have less reaction time. Additionally, speed turns non-injury fender-benders into severe injuries or fatal collisions. Other kinds of aggressive driving include turning unsafely and tailgating.
• Operator Impairment: Alcohol/drug use is the most common and most dangerous kind of operator impairment. These substances cloud judgment and slow motor skills. Therefore, substance-impaired drivers take reckless chances and cannot correct them before it’s too late. Fatigue, which is almost as expected, resembles alcohol/drug use in most ways. Driving after eighteen consecutive awake hours is like driving with a .05 BAC level. Other kinds of operator impairment include driving while sick and/or distracted.

Sometimes, both motorists make driving errors and substantially contribute to a crash. Similarly, unintentional poisonings, mostly drug overdoses, have several causes.

The person who takes the drugs bears some responsibility. So does a company that negligently made unduly powerful pills, a doctor who recklessly prescribed them, and a shipping company that transported them without asking questions.

Falls are the leading injury-related cause of death for people over 65. Usually, these individuals have pre-existing medical conditions contributing to a fall’s risk and severity. However, the primary responsibility lies with property owners who fail to maintain their premises safely.

Once jurors understand that car crashes, poisonings, and falls aren’t “accidental,” the stage is set for maximum compensation. More on that below.

Injury

The causes of personal injuries vary. But the injuries themselves are much the same in any context. These injuries include three significant kinds of head injuries, which are:

• mTBI: A moderate traumatic brain injury is a concussion. The symptoms of concussions are temporary. But the brain damage is permanent. Dead brain cells don’t regenerate. Instead, uninjured parts of the brain assume lost functions. So, as the number of concussions increases, so does the likelihood of permanent injury.
• sTBI: Initial symptoms of a severe traumatic brain injury appear temporary as well. Therefore, many doctors don’t treat or even test for head injuries. As a result, the injury gets progressively worse and, in many cases, becomes fatal, often due to an sTBI-induced suicide.
• PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a physical brain injury, just like the other two. Extreme stress, like the stress of a car crash or other life-threatening injury, causes a chemical imbalance in the brain. This imbalance, in turn, causes symptoms like anger, hypervigilance, flashbacks, and depression. These symptoms are disabling in many cases.

The average injury-related medical bill usually exceeds $40,000. A Los Angeles personal injury lawyer connects accident victims with doctors who charge nothing upfront for their professional services.

Compensation

Accident injury compensation usually comes in the form of a settlement. Over 95 percent of personal injury claims settle out of court. Settlement isn’t a result. It’s a process, and frequently, this process is time-consuming.

Sometimes, the settlement process begins with the “accident” case evaluation discussed above. If the victim is seriously injured, which is very common in car crashes and other accident injury claims, the settlement process begins with the “injury” discussion. A Los Angeles personal injury attorney’s first priority is always people, not legal theories.

Then, to obtain maximum compensation, an attorney must diligently prepare a case as if it’s going to trial. The minimum accident-injury approach yields minimum results.

Reach out to our experienced personal injury lawyers today!

Frequently, a mediator helps the two sides settle a personal injury dispute. Mediation doesn’t happen until relatively late in the litigation process. So, victims must, unfortunately, wait. Usually, the wait is worthwhile. Injury victims are entitled to significant compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced personal injury attorney in Los Angeles, contact the Law Offices of Eslamboly Hakim. We do not charge upfront legal fees in these matters.

Credit: Photo by Midjourney