With the growing cost of medical care in the United States, nobody wants to be involved in an accident that wasn’t their fault. When somebody acts negligently and causes you injury through their negligence, it can be a traumatic experience.
You might have to deal with quickly surmounting medical expenses, property damage, and the emotional distress and mental trauma of the accident. You should not be responsible for paying these costs, and fortunately, in Georgetown, TX, you can seek to recover compensation for your pain and suffering and the recovery of your damages.
The best way to do this is to seek the help of a Georgetown personal injury lawyer, one well versed in the complexities of personal injury law in Texas. They will be able to assist you by explaining your potential options, evaluating your case, and answering any questions you need to ask.
Once you have obtained legal representation, you can breathe a little easier, taking a step back from the situation and focusing on the important things, like your physical recovery and mental well-being.
Chris Morrow Law, PLLC – The Attorney That Works
When you need a favorable outcome, you should look for a law firm with a proven track record and a reliable reputation.
Here at Chris Morrow Law, PLLC, our team of Georgetown personal injury lawyers has won numerous cases for clients in similar situations to yours. Using the experience from these past cases gives our attorneys an advantage when it comes to tailoring a bespoke approach and strategy. We have dealt with enough cases to know which strategies work and when to apply them.
Part of our fierce reputation comes from our founder and leading attorney, Chris Morrow, an attorney with a stellar reputation earned through his countless first chair trials and through ferociously advocating on behalf of his clients.
Part of our ethos is that we believe all victims should have the right to seek reliable representation, no matter what their current financial situation may be. Nobody should have to forgo seeking what is rightfully theirs because they cannot afford to retain a lawyer.
Our Georgetown personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis, which means our clients do not pay us unless we win their case. That means no up-front costs to retain us. We simply take a percentage of any settlement we win for our clients.
Not only this, but we also offer a free consultation and case evaluation to any client who needs it. There are no strings attached here. We will offer you some free legal advice, evaluate your case and tell you if we think it is worth pursuing.
You can choose to walk away – better off receiving some free advice, or you can agree to representation, and we will spring into action.
Call us today at 512-520-8100.
What Damages Can I Recover With a Georgetown Personal Injury Lawyer
There are two main types of damages that your attorney will be able to help you recover. These damages are your economic damages and your non-economic damages.
Of the two, your attorney will usually begin with your economic damages, as they are easier to calculate and can be used to assist them in calculating your non-economic damages.
Your economic damages are any damages that can be summed up easily and cost you physical money. If there was a clear price tag, they are economic damages. Medical bills and property damages are common examples. These damages can usually be supported by physical evidence like bills, receipts, and invoices.
Non-economic damages, on the other hand, are more difficult to quantify. These damages cover things that are less tangible, such as your pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
As these damages are more difficult to calculate, this is where a skilled and experienced personal injury lawyer proves their worth. By using their experience in numerous past cases, they will be able to judge more accurately what your non-economic damages are worth.
Calculation of your damages in the most accurate way possible has multiple benefits for your case:
- When your lawyer formulates a settlement offer to send to the other party and their lawyer, the fairer your damages are, the harder they are to argue.
- If you cannot secure an out-of-court settlement, your lawyer will find it easier to convince the courts that you deserve to be awarded what you are seeking if they are fair and reasonable.
In order to assist your personal injury lawyer in calculating your damages, it is a smart idea to familiarize yourself with the most important ones:
Medical Bills
Your medical bills will often be the most worrying and immediate of your growing damages. Even with a strong level of medical coverage, if your accident was serious and you require multiple surgeries and treatment, your medical costs can quickly surpass your coverage, leaving you to pay for your medical costs out of your own pocket.
With the help of your Georgetown personal injury lawyers, you can seek to recover all past, future, and present medical expenses that you have incurred.
This includes:
- Treatment costs.
- Medication costs.
- Surgery costs.
- Transport to and from the hospital.
- Childcare.
You can seek to recover all the medical costs you have incurred already, and, with the help of medical experts, your personal injury lawyer may seek to recover all future costs as well by working out what a lifetime of treatment costs may look like.
In order to ensure you have the best chance of recovering all of your medical damages, we recommend you keep a diary of your pain and mood during your treatment. In this diary, note down the treatment you received that day/week as well as a 1-10 rating of your pain and mood.
You must also keep all receipts, bills, and invoices. These will be crucial in supporting your claims.
Loss of Earnings and Lost Wages
The majority of personal injury accidents result in injuries that are severe enough that the victim has to take time off work in order to recover. Unfortunately, for many, this means lost wages as a result.
When you have been injured in an accident that was not your fault, you should not be left dealing with a loss of wages.
Together with your personal injury lawyer, you will be able to seek to recover all the wages you have lost as well as all of the wages that you may stand to lose. If you are never able to work in the same capacity ever again, you may be able to seek a lifetime of lost wages.
Pain and Suffering
Pain and suffering damages allow you to seek compensation for the pain you have been through and the emotional distress you have suffered.
Pain and suffering may include seeking damages for the intense pain of the injury or a loss of enjoyment of life if you can no longer swim lengths of your pool every morning
These are the damages that need to be worked out by an attorney with as much experience as possible, as they do not have a clear figure attached to them. The more cases your personal injury lawyer has fought and won a settlement for, the more experience they will be able to draw upon.
What Types of Injury Does a Georgetown Personal Injury Lawyer Deal With
Personal injury claims can encompass a wide variety of different injuries, and, as personal injury lawyers, we see many different injuries daily. Some of these injury types are more common, such as:
- Abrasions, and lacerations (cuts)
- Animal bites and attacks
- Back and neck injuries, such as whiplash and crushing
- Burns to the skin
- Car accidents
- Catastrophic injuries
- Drowning and choking
- Electrocution
- Injuries to the spine
- Motorcycle accidents
- Premises liability
- Product liability
- TBIs (traumatic brain injuries)
- Truck accidents
- Work injury
- Wrongful death
While these injuries may be the most common of the ones that we see, this list is by no means comprehensive.
If you have been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault, and you have suffered an injury not listed above, you should get in touch with a personal injury law firm immediately so that they can evaluate your case.
Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer in Georgetown, TX Area
Raising a personal injury lawsuit begins with seeking representation from a skilled and experienced Georgetown personal injury lawyer. If you have never had the need for a lawyer before, this may seem like a daunting task.
Here at Chris Morrow Law, PLLC, we offer a free consultation for a reason. This gives you space to ask any of the questions that you need to ask without any strings attached. You can take this time to ensure that you get along with the attorney that may be handling your case. They will evaluate what happened to you and will advise you on whether they believe it is worth pursuing.
The goal here is to leave the free consultation more educated on the personal injury process in Texas, and this will allow you to make an informed decision from a place of clarity on whether you wish to proceed with representation from one of our skilled personal injury lawyers.
If by the end of this meeting, you feel confident enough to proceed and you agree to the fee structure we lay out, we can begin working within the day. We will take over the investigation, inform the other parties you have representation and wish for us to liaise on your behalf, and we will start building your case.
The Importance of Assigning Negligence Following a Georgetown Personal Injury Accident
Negligent behavior, defined by Cornell Law School, is:
“A failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances. The behavior usually consists of actions, but can also consist of omissions when there is some duty to act (e.g., a duty to help victims of one’s previous conduct). ”
If you are still unclear, negligent behavior is any behavior seen as different from reasonable.
An example would be running a stop sign in your car and causing an accident. A reasonable individual in the same situation would have stopped at the stop sign.
The Four Elements of a Personal Injury Case
There are four elements your Georgetown personal injury lawyer will need to consider. If you can prove these four elements, your case will be valid, and if you proceed to the courtroom, the court will expect your lawyer to prove them. These elements are:
- The at-fault party had a duty of care for the individual who was injured.
- The at-fault party breached their duty of care to the victim by acting in a way that is seen as negligent.
- The injuries of the victim are a result of that negligence.
- The incident led to the victim suffering from economic and non-economic losses.
Maximizing Your Chances of Success
There are certain things you can do to increase your chances of success, and there are things you should not do.
Things to Avoid Doing After The Accident
Let us start with the things that you should avoid doing.
Never Apologize
In the heat of the moment following an accident, victims often say something that can be seen as a form of apology, even when the accident was not their fault. You must avoid this, as any form of apology may be used against you. If the other insurance company finds that you have apologized, they will use this to reduce their liability.
Never Allow an Insurance Company Representative to Record Your Conversation
The trained legal team and loss adjusters that work at the insurance company of the other party will try to reduce their liability and the amount they have to pay out, however possible. To do this, they may ask if they can record a phone call and then use what you say against you later on.
Always refuse to let an insurance company record your phone call and advise them to speak to your personal injury lawyer instead.
Never Accept a Settlement Offer on the Spot
Another strategy the other insurance company might use is to offer you what seems like an attractive offer. They will do this quickly in the days following the accident in the hopes that you accept.
Once you accept a settlement, you forgo the right to seek anything else from the other party in relation to that incident. The other party’s insurance company knows this and will most likely have calculated what the accident may cost them. They will then offer a lot lower than this.
Never accept a settlement without speaking to your Georgetown personal injury lawyer about it. In most cases, the first settlement offer you receive will be lower than what they are truly willing to pay.
Things You Should Do at The Scene of the Accident
There are certain things you should try to remember if you are ever involved in an accident or are currently at the scene.
Prioritize Your Safety
In the aftermath of an accident, your safety is the top priority. Check to see if you have injured your spine, neck, or head. If you suspect you have, do not let anyone move you until the ambulance turns up. If your injuries allow it and you are in further danger, move away from the danger.
Check for Injuries and Call an Ambulance
If there are any injuries whatsoever, you need to call an ambulance. They will be able to treat any injuries and will examine those who may have hidden injuries. Adrenaline and shock can mask a lot of symptoms, and it is always the safest option to have the ambulance team check everyone involved.
The ambulance team will also file an accident report that can be utilized in your case.
Collect Evidence and Speak to Witnesses
If your injuries allow it, and after you have called the ambulance, now is a great time to collect any evidence you can. Take videos and pictures of the scene, record a voice note statement, speak to any witnesses and ask them to do the same; remember, the more evidence you can collect, the better.
Call a Personal Injury Lawyer
The sooner you contact your Georgetown personal injury lawyers, the more time they will have to investigate and collect strong evidence. They will also be able to advise you on what to say and do and what not to say and do. This may prevent you from accidentally accepting some degree of liability.
Do I Really Need a Georgetown Personal Injury Lawyer?
There is nothing to stop you from seeking compensation for your injuries by yourself, without representation, but we advise against it. If you are considering doing so because you believe you will be better off financially, this is not usually true.
In the majority of personal injury cases, seeking compensation and the recovery of damages with a Georgetown personal injury lawyer will usually net a higher payout. This payout is usually so much more substantial that you will walk away with more, even after paying your personal injury lawyers.
You should also remember that the majority of personal injury lawyers, us included, work on a contingency fee basis. This means it costs you nothing to seek our representation.
These cases can also take several years to complete, and you will be responsible for fighting your case for this entire period. On top of the injuries you are suffering, do you really want the additional stress?
Finally, the insurance company of the at-fault party will almost definitely employ an aggressive legal team that has a sole purpose: to reduce their liability and reduce the amount they eventually pay out to you. They will have a massive advantage over a victim who has no legal training and no representation from a personal injury lawyer.
Deadline after an Accident
The Texas Statute of Limitations states that you have no longer than 2 years from the date the incident occurred to make your personal injury claim or your case becomes barred.
After this point, your case will be thrown out if you attempt to raise it.
The same is true for both personal injury cases and wrongful death cases.
Cedar Park Personal Injury FAQs
No ethical lawyer will ever provide you with a guarantee of victory. If they do, we advise you to look elsewhere. A Georgetown personal injury lawyer may evaluate your case, informing you if your case is strong or weak, but they should never promise anything.
The length of time that a personal injury case takes to settle and complete is entirely dependent upon the complexity of the case. In a case where there are only two parties, and one is clearly liable, the case may settle quickly.
In cases involving multiple victims, varying levels of liability, or more complex laws, such as those surrounding medical malpractice and wrongful death, cases can take several years to complete.
There is no rule or regulation that places a requirement upon the victim to use a specific medical provider when they have been injured in a personal injury accident. You have the right to use whatever medical provider you wish to treat your injuries.
The only exception to this rule is when you are injured in the workplace. Sometimes you may be required to use a medical provider that is part of your work’s occupation health insurance policy.
Do not let the insurance company convince you that you must use one of their approved repair shops. You have the right to use any repair shop you want to use to repair your car, truck, or motorcycle.
Following an accident, you will have to tell your insurance company you were in an accident, and it may be impossible to avoid all contact with the insurance adjusters after this point. However, you should always be careful of what you say when speaking to any insurance company representative, as they will usually have their best interests at heart, not yours.
Contact Us Here at Chris Morrow Law, PLLC Today
If you or a loved one have suffered due to an accident caused by a negligent party, we know how frustrating and stressful it can be. Nobody should be left to deal with mounting medical bills and loss of wages when the accident was not their fault.
Here at Chris Morrow Law, PLLC, our skilled and experienced team is ready to help. We have fought and won countless favorable outcomes and maximum settlement amounts for clients in the same situation as you are now.
Each and every Georgetown personal injury lawyer on our team will take the time to build a strong and secure attorney-client relationship, and with our experience in all personal injury practice areas, we will help you build the best possible case, allowing you to seek the compensation you rightfully deserve.
Contact us today to arrange a free consultation at 512-520-8100.
