California Bodily Injury Lawyers
- PAY NOTHING UPFRONT
- OVER $500 MILLION RECOVERED
- ZERO-FEES UNTIL WE WIN
- Experienced Injury Lawyers Know How to Identify and Hold the Negligent Parties Responsible
- The Right Bodily Injury Lawyers Know How to Get Strong Evidence to Support Your Claim
- Bodily Injury Lawyers Know What Losses You Can Claim for Compensation
- Our Experienced Injury Lawyers Know Insurance Company Tactics
Reliable Bodily Injury Lawyers in California
If you have been hurt in an accident, you are probably wondering whether you need to hire a California bodily injury lawyer. Some injury victims choose to handle their claims on their own without the help of an accident attorney, not always a good idea. Injury victims who have a lawyer consistently receive higher settlements than those who handle their own claims, and there are many reasons why these high settlements occur.
Injury lawyers do all sorts of important things to help protect your legal rights. Our reliable law firm will fight hard to ensure that our clients get the compensation they are legally entitled to for their bodily injuries. What follows are just a few of the many things a bodily injury lawyer can do for you.
Experienced Injury Lawyers Know How to Identify and Hold the Negligent Parties Responsible
There are many potential defendants in a personal injury case. Even a “simple” car accident can result in injury claims against multiple drivers, or the manufacturer of a defective vehicle, or the owner of a commercial vehicle (such as a delivery truck). Even your employer might get involved if you were on the clock when the accident happened or running a work errand.
In such a case, you could be entitled to workers’ compensation coverage. It is important to work with a bodily injury lawyer who knows how to find all potential defendants. If you just file an injury claim against one driver, you could miss out on the compensation you are owed from other defendants. Once your lawyer has identified all potential defendants, they will begin gathering evidence to prove the defendants were at fault.
The Right Bodily Injury Lawyers Know How to Get Strong Evidence to Support Your Claim
Anyone who was legally at fault (“liable”) for causing your injuries has a legal obligation to compensate you for them. Your lawyer will investigate your case and gather evidence that will prove who was at fault for causing the accident. This evidence can include:
- Witness statements (either to the police or in a deposition)
- Photographs or video footage of the accident scene
- The police report, sketches, and related documents from law enforcement
- Repair invoices and other receipts documenting the value of all property damage
- Medical records and receipts for your bills
- Documentation of lost wages from your employer
In some complex cases, your lawyer may need to hire expert witnesses to prove your claim. For example, if it is not clear exactly what driver caused an accident, your attorney might hire an accident reconstructionist to give an expert opinion about the cause of the accident. If you have medical complications that have resulted in expensive care, your attorney might have a medical expert testify about your condition in order to justify the higher cost of care.
Our experienced bodily injury lawyers at Arash Law headed by Arash Khorsandi know what evidence is needed to prove each element of your case. We also know which evidence is most persuasive to claims adjusters in settlement negotiations and which is most persuasive to a jury at trial.
December 2016: $22M+ verdict in a mild traumatic brain injury case. The entire details of the case can be found in the public record filings by the defendant entity that sued its defense.– Brian Beecher
Bodily Injury Lawyers Know What Losses You Can Claim for Compensation
There are many different types of losses you can claim for compensation in a personal injury lawsuit. Your bodily injury lawyer will help you prove the value of both your economic and non-economic losses. What follows are some of the most common areas of compensation in a bodily injury claim.
Medical Bills
A negligent defendant must pay for all the medical bills you had to pay as a result of your injuries. Your health insurance must also pay for your medical bills under your usual contract, so don’t worry about getting a personal injury settlement right away. Workers’ compensation and other policies might also apply to cover your medical bills until your case is settled.
If you cannot pay for medical bills upfront, talk to your lawyer about options for getting the care you need. If your injuries are permanent, you will keep accruing medical bills for years to come – possibly even the rest of your life. You are entitled to compensation for these losses, too.
But how can you be paid without receipts to document the amount of your bills? Experienced bodily injury attorneys work with expert witnesses to accurately project the value of these future bills. A life care planner can map out the care you require and the estimated cost of this care.
An economist can then calculate the total and adjust it for inflation over the years to come, an incredibly important service for victims with permanent injuries. If you do not have a lawyer who knows how to prove the value of your future medical care, you could miss out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation to which you are legally entitled.
Lost Wages and Decreased Future Earning Capacity
Almost all injury victims miss at least some time from work after an accident. If you are out for a short time, your employer can provide a simple statement showing the number of hours you missed at what your hourly rate of pay is. These figures are multiplied to calculate the total value of your lost wages. If you can prove that you also missed out on overtime, bonuses, or other forms of compensation, these can also be claimed.
Some injury victims are never able to return to any kind of work. Others can do some work, but only with limited responsibilities, or on a part-time schedule. All of these scenarios represent a decrease in your future earning capacity. Injury victims are entitled to compensation for the wages they would have earned had they been able to maintain their pre-accident employment.
Here, too, your attorney will need testimony from an expert witness who can accurately project these values. Your total lost wages will be adjusted for inflation until you reach the average age of retirement. Other employment benefits (such as an employer’s contributions to health insurance premiums or retirement accounts) can also be accounted for.
Pain and Suffering
The largest component of many personal injury settlements is pain and suffering, which is compensation for the physical pain and emotional losses you suffer as a result of your injuries. These non-economic damages can include losing sleep, missing family activities and major life events, a general decrease in your quality of life, and other intangible losses.
Pain and suffering is not always clear. It is helpful to keep a journal of all the ways that you have been affected by your injuries. These details can make a compelling case to a jury at trial. They are also used in settlement negotiations.
Insurance companies like to attack pain and suffering because it is not easy to define. With specific details to explain your compelling story, your attorney will be prepared to negotiate a fair offer that fully compensates you for your pain and suffering.
Wrongful Death
All too often, injuries prove fatal. Hundreds of thousands of Americans die every year due to the negligence of others. It is important to hold defendants accountable for their negligence – especially when it is so serious as to cause death. Surviving family members and legal heirs are entitled to compensation for their losses, including funeral and burial expenses, the victim’s lost wages, and other financial losses that are the direct result of the defendant’s negligence.
Surviving spouses are also entitled to compensation for loss of consortium, which is a blanket term for all the emotional losses associated with the untimely death of a spouse. A bodily injury lawyer will ensure that your wrongful death claim is filed on time by the right parties. They will also find all potential defendants, theories of liability, and insurance policies to be sure that you have access to all the compensation that you are legally owed.
Our Experienced Injury Lawyers Know Insurance Company Tactics
Insurance companies use all kinds of strategies to get out of paying you the money you are owed. Every year, these companies spend huge sums of money training their adjusters to pay as little as possible on as few claims as possible. There are also common tricks they use.
Our injury lawyers see these tactics all the time, and we are prepared to deal with them to protect your legal rights. What follows are just a few of the most common insurance company tactics.
Pressure to Settle Quickly
If you have not yet hired an attorney, the insurance company will likely pressure you to settle your claim as quickly as possible. It is in their interest to do so. After all, if you settle quickly, you will not have a chance to find out the fair value of your case. They might claim that a settlement offer “expires” or that it will go down over time.
They might even try to tell you that you do not need a lawyer. None of these assertions are necessarily true. Remember, the insurance company is on the other side and actively working against you. You should only take legal advice from your own qualified legal professional – not an insurance agent who is working for the other side.
Lowball Settlement Offer
Another common tactic is to simply make a lowball offer that is less than your claim is fairly worth. Claims adjusters know that most injury victims do not have a way of accurately valuing their claims without an attorney’s advice. A fair settlement offer accounts for your unique pain and suffering, how egregious the defendant’s actions were, and how your overall case would present to a jury.
Insurance companies try to get victims to leap at a quick settlement offer with the promise of fast cash, so they can pay these claims out before the victim knows what their case is truly worth. Many injury victims miss out on thousands of dollars in compensation this way. Though it takes a little longer, the best way to protect your legal rights is to hire your own lawyer to thoroughly investigate your case. Doing so is the only way to know what your claim is truly worth.
Private Investigators
The use of a private investigator is perhaps the creepiest tactic of all. If an insurance company thinks that you are exaggerating your pain or lying about your injuries, they could send a private investigator to your home or workplace. The goal is to try to catch you doing something that your injuries were supposed to prevent (for example, playing a contact sport).
In practice, this goal amounts to a stranger following you (and possibly your children) to your home. Lately, however, many private investigators do not even have to leave their computers. There is a huge amount of information about you on social media.
Even if you think you have privacy settings that prevent outside snooping, a PI can find photos of you from other accounts or create a fake profile to get you to accept a friend request, which is why it is so important not to post anything about the accident on social media until your case has been resolved. In fact, the best practice is to simply post as little as possible during this time. Even something like a simple gym selfie could be used against you in court. Let your lawyer know if you get strange requests in your social media channels or if anyone seems to be following your movements.
The Right Bodily Injury Lawyers for All California Accident Cases
Search online for “bodily injury lawyers near me” to read some of our firm’s many excellent reviews of. Our skilled injury attorneys have decades of experience, and our legal team has collected over 500 million dollars for clients across the Golden State.
We serve clients in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Riverside, Bakersfield, Santa Barbara, San Jose, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento, Sherman Oaks, and throughout California. Clients across the Golden State trust our firm. We will fight hard for you, too. Call (888) 488-1391 today to schedule your free consultation. Don’t wait to get an attorney on your side.
