Virtually anyone wronged by another individual’s negligence can file a personal injury lawsuit. The injuries need not be just physical – they can be emotional as well. Personal injuries can occur everywhere – at home, at school, at work, in a restaurant, in a grocery store or simply walking down the street.

The most common personal injury lawsuits involve car/truck accidents, sports injuries, work-related injuries, defective products, negligence and malpractice. These injuries can severely damage a person’s future with disabling head and brain injury, spinal cord injury, back and neck injury, birth injury, knee injury, paralysis. Even dog bites can cause serious injury.

Although you can file a personal injury lawsuit on your own, the nuances of the laws can be very complicated. You can jeopardize the outcome of your case by attempting to represent yourself – personal injury lawsuits are best left to personal injury lawyers who have the expertise in holding companies or groups liable for negligent actions.

Obtaining damages in a personal injury lawsuit can involve complex litigation and the personal injury laws vary by state. Personal injury lawsuits are designed to compensate the injured party (known as the plaintiff) for losses. Compensatory damages involve a monetary award for past and future medical bills, lost wages, loss of companionship, disfigurement, and pain and suffering. Punitive damages may be awarded if the negligence was blatant or outrageous. Punitive damages are usually awarded to serve as a deterrent for individuals presenting similar negligence in the future.

All too often, the injuries in a personal injury lawsuit can be catastrophic. We have received successful outcomes for our clients suffering from the injuries.

Not every plaintiff who is injured can recover damages. Together we must prove that the defendant is legally responsible for your injuries. This proof is in the form of actual causation and proximate (legal) causation. Actual causation is based on cause and effect. Whether legal causation is established depends on the facts and circumstances of the particular matter in question.

In some personal injury actions, legal causation may be established if the plaintiff can show that the defendant was intentionally negligent. This means that the defendant intentionally harmed the plaintiff or knew ahead of time that harm would result.

Some personal injury cases are based on negligence. Negligence occurs if a defendant did not exercise reasonable care in preventing the injury. Still other types of personal injury actions are based on strict liability, which is a no-fault system under which liability may be established regardless of the fault of the various parties, including the plaintiff. Strict liability is often applied in products liability cases, such as when a manufacturer or seller of a defective product puts that product into the hands of consumers and users of the product are injured.

The defendant can be held liable for actions taken or for actions not taken. A driver who fails to stop at a red light and hits another vehicle and injures the other driver or passengers is liable based on her negligent acts.