In the aftermath of a severe accident, you may find yourself with legal questions. What comes next? Do you have grounds for a personal injury claim? If another party's actions caused your injuries, a personal injury claim can help you seek compensation for your expenses as well as the pain and suffering you faced due to your injuries.
An experienced Miami personal injury attorney can help. Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA today at for a free consultation regarding your right to a personal injury claim.
About Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA
Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA has won numerous awards and is recognized by the Lawyers of Distinction 2019, America's Top 100 High Stakes Litigators, Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum, Super Lawyers, and Florida Legal Elite 2020.
Due to this nationwide recognition, insurance companies and defense attorneys know that our legal team understands Florida personal injury law and that we aren't afraid to take a case to trial if settlement proves unviable. The respect that we've earned throughout the legal community makes us worthy opponents of even the nation's largest and most powerful companies. For example, we've litigated cases against Walmart, Target, and Walt Disney World.
We use our resources and legal skills to fight for maximum compensation on behalf of every client, and we've recovered millions of dollars in compensation for our past personal injury clients. We protect people's rights across both coasts of Florida. If you need a Fort Lauderdale car accident lawyer or legal help in Miami, a legal professional from Dolman Law can advise you of your rights.
Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, today to schedule your free initial consultation, during which you can discuss the details of your injuries and determine your eligibility to file a personal injury claim.
Our Past Results
At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, we focus our practice on personal injury law and representing individuals who have sustained injuries in preventable accidents. Personal injuries can stem from many different incidents, including traffic accidents, slip and fall accidents, work-related accidents, medical malpractice, construction site accidents, and more.
At Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, we have experience successfully litigating and negotiating personal injury cases that result from all of these types of accidents and more. While we cannot guarantee a favorable result in your case, we can point to our past successes to show our experience with and knowledge of Florida personal injury law.
Consider some of our recent case results:
- $1.58 million for a client who sustained serious injuries in an auto accident, including two herniated discs impinging on the spinal cord. The insurance company initially offered a $62,000 settlement, but we took the case to trial and recovered significantly more on behalf of our injured client.
- $1 million for a client who sustained severe shoulder injuries in an auto accident and required surgery. After 14 months of litigation, we negotiated a favorable settlement during pre-trial mediation.
- $1 million for the family of a man who died in a rideshare accident through a wrongful death claim.
Types of Personal Injury Claims in Miami
You may have grounds to file a personal injury claim any time someone else's actions or negligence causes a serious accident that results in severe injuries. Common scenarios may include:
Auto Accident Injuries
Car and motorcycle accidents can cause severe injuries, which may have life-altering consequences for the victim; traumatic brain injury, back and neck injuries, or serious burns, for example. Following an auto accident, you may have the right to file a personal injury claim, which will help you seek compensation for your financial losses associated with your medical treatment, as well as compensation for damage to your vehicle.
Auto accident claims against a driver who was on the clock at the time of the accident may be even more complex, especially if the driver's employer shares liability for the accident. In some cases, the driver's employer may push the driver to take dangerous or illegal actions on the road, such as forcing the driver to take to the road in unsafe conditions or pushing the driver to break the law to meet tight deadlines. This kind of unsafe behavior can substantially increase the risk of an accident and lead to serious injuries.
Construction Site Accidents
Construction sites pose numerous opportunities for severe injuries. Not only do construction workers work in hazardous settings, they often use heavy machinery, power tools, and dangerous chemicals as part of their daily job responsibilities. Construction workers may suffer chemical burns, amputations, fall injuries, or severely broken bones on a construction site. If you suffer injuries as a worker on a construction site, you may need to file a workers' compensation claim. If you suffer injuries as a visitor to a construction site, on the other hand, you may want to file a personal injury claim to help you seek compensation for your injuries.
Dog Bites
Dog bite injuries can leave victims with more than just puncture wounds. Sometimes a dog bite can result in broken bones. A dog attack can also result in severe lacerations. On top of the physical injuries, you may experience immense psychological trauma as a result of the attack. Florida law states that the owner of a dog that bites someone who is on public property or on private property where the victim was legally allowed to be, bears liability for the dog's actions, including financial liability for injuries sustained as a result of that attack.
Medical Malpractice
You trust your doctor to take care of you. Doctors even swear an oath to harm no one under their care. Unfortunately, sometimes doctors engage in negligent behavior that can result in severe injuries for their patients—failing to properly diagnose an injury or illness, treating that illness or injury incorrectly, or failing to offer adequate treatment, for example. Some victims of medical malpractice may suffer even more severe injury, including “never events” like an operation on the wrong body part or something accidentally left behind in the patient's body following a surgical procedure. In the event of medical malpractice, a personal injury claim can help you recover compensation for the losses you face.
Nursing Home Abuse and Neglect
Nursing home residents count on the nursing home staff to provide a high standard of care during the later years of their lives. Unfortunately, not all nursing homes provide the standard of care needed to keep residents safe and well during those years. Some nursing homes may neglect their residents, failing to provide adequate care for their physical, emotional, and medical needs. Others may abuse nursing home residents outright. If you or a loved one suffers physical, mental, sexual, or emotional abuse in a nursing home, or suffers illness or declining health as a result of neglect, a personal injury claim can help restore some of the funds lost as a result of needed medical treatment.
Slip and Fall Accidents
Slip and fall accidents can cause severe injuries, whether you fall down a flight of steps or slip and fall walking across the floor at a local store. Victims of slip and fall accidents may suffer from broken hips, broken bones in the hands and arms, or back and neck injuries. They may also find themselves dealing with traumatic brain injury. Slip and fall accidents occur more frequently when premises owners fail to properly maintain the premises, whether that means ignoring a spill or failing to take care of needed repairs.
Seeking Compensation Following a Serious Miami Accident
After a serious Miami accident caused by someone else's negligence, you may have the right to file a personal injury claim to seek compensation for your injuries.
Identifying the Party Liable for Your Miami Accident and Injuries
To identify the liable party—the party whose negligence caused your accident—your attorney will ask several key questions.
1) Who bore a duty of care to you at the time of the incident? In the case of a car accident, for example, every driver on the road bears a duty of care to every other driver on the road. Drivers must exercise care not to unduly increase accident risk for other drivers. They should follow the rules of the road, maintain a safe speed limit, and avoid drinking and driving or driving while distracted. A driver who ignores these duties may increase accident risk and may, therefore, bear liability for an accident caused by their negligence.
Likewise, in a medical malpractice claim, your doctor, the hospital where you went for your procedures or treatment, and any other caregivers who took care of you during your treatment bear a high duty of care to you. They are responsible for providing adequate care that meets the generally accepted standard of care by other professionals with similar training in similar circumstances.
In many personal injury claims, your attorney can identify multiple parties who may share a duty of care to you at the time of the accident. Suppose, for example, that you suffered severe electrical burns as a result of exposed electrical wiring on a construction site. The subcontractor who worked on the electrical wiring may have failed to properly ground those wires or to turn off the electricity when they should have, so that subcontractor may bear primary liability for the accident. A supervising contractor who failed to take adequate safety precautions may also share liability for those injuries. Talk to your attorney to learn more about who may share liability for the circumstances that led to your specific accident.
2) How did the liable entity violate its duty of care to you? What actions did the liable party take—or fail to take—that violated their duty of care to you? For example, a texting driver violates their duty of care to others on the road, including other drivers, motorcycle riders, cyclists, and pedestrians, by taking their attention off of the road and focusing on their phone instead. A doctor who commits a medical malpractice error may violate their duty of care by failing to properly investigate your symptoms or by prescribing the wrong medication or treatment for your ailment.
To file a personal injury claim, you may need to establish that the person or entity liable for your accident committed some act that violated their duty of care in some way. Sometimes, accidents occur for no particular reason, and no one can prevent them. Establishing the liable entity's violation of the duty of care to you can help you move forward with your claim.
3) How did the violation of the duty of care to you cause your injuries? To have grounds to file a personal injury claim, you must have suffered some type of injury due to the liable party's act of negligence.
Suppose, for example, that you notice a drunk driver on the road. You pull your vehicle back to keep it well out of the way, then pull off the road to report the incident to the police. They arrive and pull over the drunk driver in time to prevent an accident, and no one suffers any type of injury. As a result, you do not have grounds for a personal injury claim. On the other hand, if that drunk driver strikes you with their car, causing serious back and neck injuries and severely damaging your car, you may have grounds for a personal injury claim.
Likewise, suppose that you notice a significant spill on the floor of a store. You go around the spill and report it to the staff, who come quickly to clean it up. No accident occurred, and you do not have grounds for a personal injury claim. On the other hand, if you did not notice the spill and stepped in it, causing you to fall and break your arm, you may have grounds for a personal injury claim.
The Compensation You Can Seek Following a Miami Accident
Once you have identified the liable party or parties in your claim, your attorney can work with you to put together a demand package that includes all the financial losses you faced as a result of your accident. Typically, accident victims will include the following key elements as part of their claim.
Medical expenses related to the accident. Following an accident that results in severe injuries, you may have immense medical bills. Many accident victims find those medical expenses overwhelming, especially if they end up with long-term medical needs related to their accidents.
Keep track of all medical bills associated with the accident. You may want to start a specific file for your medical bills.
You can include all of your medical expenses related to the accident as part of your personal injury claim, including:
- Emergency treatment
- Surgical procedures
- Scans and tests
- Durable medical equipment
- Follow-up appointments
- Therapy
In some cases, you may also have the right to include the costs you faced as you modified your home to make it easier for you to function due to ongoing limitations or handicaps related to your accident. Talk to your attorney about how to include the cost of wheelchair ramps, widened doorways, and other home modifications as part of your claim if you have incurred those types of expenses.
Lost wages. You may miss substantial time at work because of your injuries. Many victims cannot go back to work right away after suffering serious injuries. Others may work for an employer or in a position that requires them to recover completely before they can go back to work. Those lost wages may feel even more problematic immediately after a serious accident, when your medical bills are also piling up. Talk to an attorney about how to include lost wages as part of your personal injury claim.
Pain and suffering. Not only might you have significant financial losses related to your injuries, you may go through substantial physical pain and face a great deal of emotional anguish related to your accident. While a personal injury claim cannot remove that anguish, it can give you some financial compensation for those losses, which may make it easier for you to rebuild your life.
Contact an Experienced Miami Personal Injury Attorney Today
If you or a loved one has sustained injuries in a preventable accident, you need an attorney who will fight for you. Contact Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA, today for a free consultation to discuss the details of your injuries and determine your eligibility to pursue compensation.
When you work with Dolman Law Group Gibe, you get the resources of a major, international firm with the accessibility and understanding of a client-centered local firm. We give our clients our personal cell phone numbers, and we pride ourselves on the compassionate legal services that we provide.
We've successfully recovered millions of dollars in compensation for past personal injury clients, and we are happy to speak with you regarding your next steps. Contact us online today or call us at 833-552-7274 (833-55-CRASH) at any time.
Client Testimonial
“AMAZING and understanding attorneys! Did great on my case and I highly recommend Dolman Law Group Accident Injury Lawyers, PA for anyone that has been injured in an accident!"
Rating: 5/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Koralis R.
Jan 2020
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