Personal Injury Attorney in Gainesville
If you have suffered an injury and are considering a personal injury lawsuit in Gainesville, contact the legal team at Abercrombie P.A. today for a free consultation. In it, we will discuss the nature of your injuries, the circumstances that led to your accident, and any associated consequences of the incident. From there, we will be able to determine the validity of a personal injury claim, and explain to you how we will work on your case. You do not need to suffer through your injuries without compensation, and our legal team will make sure that you recover all of the damages you are rightfully entitled to following your injuries. Our experience with Florida personal injury laws will be a tremendous asset to your case, so you can get on with your life as soon as possible.
How Much Money Can I Get For My Injuries?
Every accident that results in a personal injury lawsuit is different, but there are some common factors that go into determining a fair and just amount of damages for your to request through a settlement or lawsuit. Below is a short list of things that we use to build our financial case against, although your case may include many more factors than these. When you discuss your situation with the team during your free initial consultation, you will be able to get a better idea of what to expect in your case, and how to consider your injuries in terms of monetary damages.
Medical Bills
Medical bills are the foundation of most personal injury cases. This is a simple economic factor that requires totaling all of the medical expenses that you have incurred as a direct result of your injuries up until now. This will include everything from ambulance rides, medication costs, tests, and routine visits, as well as surgeries, physical therapy, and any other associated cost. We will be sure that no expense is excluded from your case, so that you are not required to pay any of these bills without damages from the case.
Lost Wages
In addition to medical bills, we will use your past income statements in order to determine the amount of time you have missed from work as a result of your personal injury, and therefore the amount of money you have missed out on in form of wages. Much like your medical expenses, you should not be required to suffer financially because of the negligence or malice of someone else.
Future Medical Bills
In addition to your past expenses, we will make a reasonable estimate of any future recovery expenses that will take place, and be sure that you are able to recover damages for them. There is no reason for you to foot the bill for any medical expenses after your case is concluded.
Job Retraining
In the event that your injuries are a limiting factor in your ability to return to your previous line of work, we will work to factor in any expenses that would arise from job training to get you into a new field that can accommodate your injuries. If your injuries keep you from returning to work, we will also consider this disability as a factor in your settlement amount, as a separate issue.
Diminished Earning Capacity
If you have suffered injuries that will affect your earning capacity for the rest of your life, we will factor that into your settlement amount to be sure that you do not need to adjust your quality of life because you are unable to sustain your income. Since the accident was not your fault, your inability to resume your work as you could before the accident is also not your fault, and we will fight for you to be fairly compensated for that.
Pain and Suffering
In addition to the economic factors that can be affected and addressed during a personal injury lawsuit, Florida also allows for there to be non-economic considerations in the final amount. This could include such intangibles as pain and suffering, something that is more complicated to determine an amount for than something like past medical bills, but still very real and important to your case. We will use our experience with personal injury law to ensure that you are able to pursue the maximum reasonable amount of non-economic damages for your accident.
There are many other factors that we will consider while determining the amount we will pursue for your injury. The aforementioned issues only make up a small amount of what we will explore, and will depend on the specifics of your accident. We will work with you to custom-tailor the lawsuit to your exact situation.
Common Personal Injuries
Personal injuries in Florida can come in any number of ways, but below we have listed some common injuries that we have handled for our clients. If your injury resembles any of these, or we did not mention it, contact us today in order to begin building your case and recovering the financial damages you are owed.
Slip and Fall
A slip and fall is an extremely common accident in Florida, and is otherwise known as a “premise liability.” In this lawsuit, we will build a case that proves the business establishment had a reasonable expectation to be aware of the hazard that caused your injury, and should have been able to amend the hazard in a way that would have avoided an accident. This could be something like a failure to property warn shoppers of a wet floor with a sign, if they were unable to dry the floor immediately.
Car Accidents
Car accidents are extremely common in Florida, but in a personal injury lawsuit, we will not be filing a claim against the repair or replacement value for your vehicle or any other personal property that was damaged. We will incorporate all of the factors of your personal injury, and pursue monetary compensation for these issues.
What Does Personal Injury Law Cover?
Personal injury law is handled under what is known as tort law, which pertains to civil cases as opposed to criminal cases. In a civil case, a victim asserts that the defendant acted in a way that put them at risk, and that decision ultimately caused them measurable injury.
The basic criteria of a personal injury lawsuit are as follows:
- A person or organization acted with negligence, malice, recklessness, or carelessness that breached their duty to keep those around them safe
- This failure of their duty to keep people safe around them resulted in an injury
- The injury was significant and impactful for the victim
- The injury had measurable damages associated with it
“Damages,” in this case, can refer to both economic and non-economic issues (see below). However, it is safe to assume that if a person suffers emotional damages as a result of an injury that there will also be financial costs associated with them.
As you can imagine by the general requirements for a personal injury lawsuit, there are many different ways that someone can suffer an injury that qualifies for a lawsuit and additional compensation. This is why we offer a free consultation for anyone who would like to learn more about their own options. We will be happy to discuss your situation with you, learn more about your injuries, explore the impacts that they have had on your life, and ultimately determine how we should best move forward with your case.
What Damages Can You Recover?
There are a variety of damages that can be recovered in a personal injury case, and go beyond simply being reimbursed for the financial impacts of your injuries. During a personal injury lawsuit, there are two different types of damages that lay out what a victim deserves. Each relates to a very different aspect of the injury.
Economic Damages
Economic damages are generally the basis of a personal injury lawsuit, because they are easier to measure than non-economic damages, and are essentially seeking compensation for either expenses or losses incurred. These include all costs associated with the injury such as medical treatment, ambulance rides, surgeries, recovery costs, physical therapy appointments, medication, assistive devices, and more.
In addition, economic damages seek compensation for income-related issues such as lost wages if the victim was required to miss work. In the event that the victim used any paid time off (PTO) or vacation time to cover their time away from work, these will also be included. If the victim has suffered from a disabling injury, then we will determine the short-term and long-term disability costs of the injury as well.
Finally, if a victim must pay for services that they would otherwise do themselves were it not for the injuries, then these can also be included. This includes things like child care, lawn care, grocery shopping, or anything else that they now require paid assistance in order to perform.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are more complicated to calculate than economic damages, simply because they pertain to impacts on the victim’s life that do not have measurable financial costs. This includes things like physical pain and emotional suffering, mental anguish, sadness, depression, and a general diminished quality of life if the injuries keep the victim from enjoying themselves as they could before.
Since there is no true dollar value for something like “pain,” the most common way to calculate the amount a victim is owed is by coming up with a multiplier — a number that represents the degree of suffering that the individual has endured. This number is then applied to the economic damages as a way to calculate the financial amount that the victim is seeking.
Recovering Damages for Your Injuries
If you are working with an insurance company to seek a settlement, you need to be aware of the fact that whatever amount they offer will be too little. Their first and top priority is to limit the amount that they pay out in order to protect their own financial interests.
When you are working with Abercrombie, P.A., we will begin by negotiating with the insurance company (or the responsible party, if there is no insurance company involved) to reach an out-of-court settlement agreement. If we are able to reach a fair agreement, then we will be able to avoid a lawsuit. However, if we are unable to reach an agreement then we will pursue your case in the Florida court system.
Limitations on Recovery
It is important that we are realistic about the amount we are seeking. If a victim were to seek an egregious amount of money, then the case would understandably be thrown out. Therefore, we want to be certain that we are working towards getting the money that you deserve for all aspects of your suffering, while still being fair and reasonable.
Your Personal Injury Attorney’s Role
When you are working with a personal injury attorney like Abercrombie, P.A., they will be your liaison for every aspect of this often complicated and stressful process. Whether it is filing paperwork, meeting deadlines for submissions, handling negotiations, contacting witnesses or expert opinions, or anything else related to your case, they are on top of it.
Part of the benefit of working with a personal injury lawyer in Gainesville is that you are able to focus on recovery without being weighed down by the stress of your legal issues.
Do You Have a Personal Injury Claim?
If you are unsure of whether or not you have legal rights to seeking damages in the form of a personal injury lawsuit or settlement, contact us now for a free initial consultation. We will work through each step of your injury to determine the cause, who was at fault, the impact that your injuries have had on your life, and whether or not the person or party who caused it are legally liable to compensate you for your injuries.
Our history of experience dealing with Florida personal injury cases will be a great way to get you moving in the right direction with confidence.
Why Choose Us?
The team at Abercrombie, P.A. has a history of success with all types of personal injuries, and we will be happy to aggressively pursue your case as we have with all of our past clients. If we are unable to win your case, then you will not be required to pay anything. We get paid only after you get paid!
Between the guarantee that working with us will not cost you any money that you have not won as a result of your lawsuit, the confidence we are certain you will have after your consultation, and our history of success, we do not doubt that you will want to work with us to get you the justice that you deserve for your injuries.
Contact Abercrombie P.A. Today
Regardless of the nature of your injury, contact the team at Abercrombie P.A. today to begin the process of recovering the financial damages you are rightfully owed. Schedule a free consultation immediately, so that you can start to get back to a normal life with the help of an experienced legal team.
