What Qualifies as a Personal Injury?

In the law, personal injury refers to an injury you suffered because of someone else’s wrongful conduct.

Victims of personal injury generally have a legal right to seek compensation from whomever caused their injury. A personal injury lawyer represents injured victims in lawsuits, insurance claims, and other legal actions seeking compensation.

Let’s take a closer look at personal injuries and the role lawyers play in securing financial compensation for victims.

How do personal injuries happen?

Personal injuries happen when someone other than the victim engages in unreasonably dangerous conduct harming the victim. Sometimes, that conduct is intentional and constitutes a crime. Often, however, the conduct does not intend to cause harm but does anyway.

Whether intentional or not, unreasonably dangerous conduct that causes harm to someone else gives that victim the right to seek damages for a personal injury.

People can suffer personal injuries in just about any circumstance imaginable.

But most personal injuries happen in a relatively small set of common scenarios, including:

• Car accidents
• Truck accidents
• SUV accidents
• Boating accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Slip and fall accidents
• Workplace accidents
• Dog bites and animal attacks

Again, this is far from a complete list; it just features the most common situations in which people often suffer personal injuries.

No matter how you suffered a personal injury, an experienced personal injury lawyer can help you get the money you need to pay for your medical expenses and other losses.

What are some common personal injuries?

The accidents and incidents described above can cause a virtually limitless variety of injuries.

Some of the most common physical injuries for which lawyers help victims recover compensation include:

• Traumatic brain injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Neck or back injuries
• Internal injuries
• Broken bones
• Lacerations
• Burns
• Torn or sprains of muscles, ligaments, or tendons
• Development of an illness

Personal injuries frequently involve some degree of psychological trauma.

Lawyers can also help personal injury victims recover money damages for emotional injuries like:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Anxiety
• Fear
• Mood disorders
• Depression
• Sleeping difficulty
• Stress
• Shameful feelings or embarrassment due to physical injuries

As above, these are not complete lists. No matter what kind of injury you suffered, you likely have the right to compensation for it if it resulted from someone else’s wrongful actions.

When can you sue for a personal injury?

Every case is different, but as a general rule, you have the right to take legal action for damages against anyone whose unreasonably dangerous decisions or actions caused you physical harm (and some types of emotional harm). One notable exception to that rule is that you do not always have the right to sue for a personal injury if your injury is covered by “no-fault” insurance, such as automobile personal injury protection (PIP) coverage or workers’ compensation insurance.

Just because you have the right to sue for a personal injury, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that an experienced personal injury lawyer will advise you to sue immediately in all cases. Many personal injuries are covered, at least in part, by your own or someone else’s insurance. In those instances, filing and pursuing an insurance claim (with the help of a skilled attorney) may constitute the most reasonable first step in getting the money you need.

But that’s not always the case. In some situations, an attorney may advise you that the best course of action, right off the bat, is to file a lawsuit against the party or parties whose unreasonable actions caused you harm. In other situations, an attorney may conclude that pursuing an insurance claim will not secure you enough money without also filing a lawsuit.

Filing a personal injury lawsuit doesn’t always mean you’ll end up with your lawyer in a courtroom, arguing the case to a judge and jury. In fact, the vast majority of personal injury insurance claims and lawsuits get resolved through negotiated settlements. In a settlement, you receive money from the party at-fault for your injuries (and often, that party’s insurance company), and in return, you release that party from any further liability to you.

How does a lawyer prove a personal injury case?

Lawyers for personal injury victims prove their cases by collecting and presenting evidence showing that the at-fault party has a legal liability to the victim for damages and the amount of damages the victim suffered.

In most (though not all) personal injury cases, a party has a legal liability to the victim if that party’s actions were negligent.

To prove negligence, the lawyer for the injured victim must gather and present evidence to prove:

• The at-fault party owed a duty of care to the victim not to act (or fail to act) in unreasonably dangerous ways that could put the victim in harm’s way;
• The at-fault party breached that duty of care through unreasonably dangerous action or inaction;
• The unreasonably dangerous action or inaction caused physical harm to the victim; and
• As a result of that harm, the victim suffered damages that can be compensated through money damages or other types of relief.

Proving a personal injury case isn’t always easy. That’s why it’s critically important to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer to represent you if you suffer any injury because of someone else’s misconduct.

What damages can you get in a personal injury case?

The compensation you can seek after a personal injury will depend on the individual facts of your case, the injuries you sustain, and how much of an impact the injuries will have on your life in the short-term and long term.

The purpose of allowing a victim to seek compensation after an accident is to help them recoup from the financial losses after an accident with injuries and to assist with any future costs and difficulties that may occur because of the injuries you sustain or the effects of those injuries.

To that end, a typical personal injury claim can seek payment for:

• Past and future medical expenses related to treating the injury and any health complications it causes;
• Lost wages the victim could not earn while recovering from a personal injury;
• Future income the victim will likely not be able to earn because a personal injury has left the victim disabled;
• Other out-of-pocket expenses the victim would not have had, were it not for the personal injury;
• The physical pain, emotional suffering, and other negative effects the personal injury had on the victim’s quality of life.

When a personal injury results in the death of the victim, the victim’s surviving spouse and/or family members often have the right to seek money damages in a wrongful death lawsuit. The compensation available in that sort of lawsuit is similar to the types of damages listed above.

In some cases, the behavior of the at-fault party in causing the personal injury was so extreme or outrageous that a court will also award the victim punitive damages, as punishment to the at-fault party.

As the descriptions above reflect, the amount of compensation you may receive for a personal injury depends in large part on the specific nature and severity of your injury. It can also depend on the amount of insurance coverage available to pay your claim and the other financial resources the at-fault party has.

The most reliable way to get a sense of the amount of money you may receive in a personal injury case is to speak with an experienced personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.

What role does a personal injury lawyer play?

A personal injury lawyer’s job is to represent the legal, personal, and financial interests of the victim, and to get the victim as much money as possible to pay for the victim’s medical needs, income losses, and other challenges resulting from a personal injury.

A personal injury lawyer does that by taking a variety of steps to advance the victim’s legal rights.

The lawyer may not take every step listed below in every case, but getting money for a personal injury victim commonly involves:

• Investigating how the injury happened by gathering physical evidence, interviewing witnesses, and (when appropriate) consulting with forensic scientists or other subject-matter experts;
• Identifying, based on that investigation, the one or more parties who may owe damages to the victim because their wrongful actions contributed to the cause of the personal injury;
• Evaluating the nature and extent of the victim’s injury, including the physical, emotional, and financial toll the injury has already taken, and will likely take in the future;
• Researching and planning a legal strategy designed to secure the maximum compensation available for the client, which may include insurance claims, lawsuits, or other legal action.
• Advising the victim or the victim’s representatives about the course of action the lawyer recommends, and answering any questions they may have;
• Executing on the strategy the victim or victim’s representatives approve;
• Preparing and filing claims and/or lawsuits demanding financial compensation for the victim’s injuries;
• Negotiating, when appropriate, settlements of those claims and lawsuits with defense lawyers and/or insurance company representatives;
• Litigating lawsuits for damages in court, including by taking a case to trial to present it to a judge or jury;
• Collecting any money owed to the personal injury victim as a result of a settlement, judgment, or jury award in the victim’s favor.

In a nutshell, a personal injury lawyer oversees and carries out the process of obtaining compensation on behalf of the victim. In most cases, those efforts yield a more favorable result than the victim or victim’s representatives could have hoped to achieve on their own.

What does a personal injury lawyer cost?

Most personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis. That is an arrangement between the lawyer and client where the lawyer works in exchange for a percentage of any money the lawyer succeeds in securing on the client’s behalf.

In a contingent fee relationship, the victim usually does not pay the lawyer any money up-front or as the case goes along. The lawyer only receives compensation if the lawyer succeeds in getting money for the victim.

So, to get a personal injury lawyer started working on a case, you usually do not have to pay the lawyer a penny. That makes personal injury lawyers affordable to just about everyone who needs them.

If I think I’ve suffered a personal injury, what should I do?

First and most importantly, seek appropriate medical care for your injury, and do as your doctor tells you. Your health should always take priority. Take your medicine, do physical therapy, and follow any other recommended part of your treatment plan to the best of your ability.

Seeking medical care doesn’t just protect your health. It also protects your legal rights. Going to a doctor as soon as possible after suffering a personal injury ensures that medical records will exist documenting the harm you suffered. Those records will often play a critical role in proving a personal injury case.

Seeking medical care and following a doctor’s orders also protects you against insurance companies and defense lawyers who might try to claim that you didn’t do enough to take care of yourself. In a very real sense, by getting the treatment you need, you enhance the value of your case.

Once you have your medical situation under control, contact a skilled, experienced personal injury attorney. Do not wait a moment longer than you need to before taking this step. You may have valuable rights to receive compensation for your injuries and losses, but those rights usually come with a time limit. If you miss a deadline for filing an insurance claim or a lawsuit, you could forfeit your rights to the money you need to pay for medical care, financial losses, and other harm you suffered.