Conroe Personal Injury Attorney

Has Someone's Negligence Caused You Significant Injury? Our Conroe Texas Injury Lawyers Can Help

Over the past two decades, Grossman Law Offices has assisted thousands in all manner of personal injury and wrongful death cases.

While lots of firms practice “general law” we have decided to focus on two kinds of law as we seek to give the best legal assistance in these two areas. This exclusive approach has let our attorneys sharpen their skills and reach a level of focus and experience that not many firms can equal.

Because of this, when you decide to hire Grossman Law Offices to represent you on your personal injury or wrongful death cases you are teaming up with a collection of attorneys who don’t just occasionally practice personal injury law, but instead are a very talented firm that devotes the majority of its time to trying cases just like yours.

We help people with a variety of injuries such as: brain injuries, spine injuries, soft tissue damages, any kind of catastrophic injuries, broken bones, concussions, any kind of bodily injuries or have been involved in assaults. Our Conroe attorneys have 20 years of experience assisting clients in getting compensation for a litany of things such as dog bites, birth injuries, 18-wheeler accidents, head injuries and construction accidents to car crash cases, compensation for being the victim of battery, slip and fall cases related to icy/wet floors, wrongful death cases, and lots more. In our two decades of practice, we have prevailed in thousands of personal injury cases assisting thousands of clients in getting compensation for financial damage, pain and suffering, medical bills and other forms of damages.

Personal injury has lots of different minor sections and while we have lots of experience litigating all kinds of personal injury cases there are many kinds of Texas personal injury cases that our Conroe personal injury attorneys are very qualified for.

What is a Personal Injury?

Everyone can be hurt, but that doesn’t mean everyone will have a serious legal case. When does an everyday injury become a personal injury legally? In the legal world, the term personal injury refers to the physical injury and the emotional pain caused by the actions or inaction of another individual. Despite what many think, you can’t automatically sue everyone that causes you pain and suffering for any purpose. An injury victim, also called the plaintiff in the legal world, has the burden to show the court that the person who caused their injury, referred to as the defendant, owes the victim an obligation to not harm. For example, if a suspect charges a cop and the cop injures that person while trying to legally defend himself, the suspect has no option to sue the office because the officer didn’t ow him a legal duty to keep him safe. But if your neighbor gets mad and attacks you, you’ll have the ability to seek a lawsuit against them because your neighbor owes you a legal duty to not cause you harm. In both examples, an assault happened which led to an injury but only the second story could lead to a legal case because in the latter example the defendant violated a legal duty that was owed to the plaintiff and in the other example, the police officer didn’t have to provide that duty. A personal injury claim is all about show that the defendant had some obligation to not harm you, showing their actions led to harm, and showing that the harm inflicted on you resulted in suffering serious injuries or emotional trauma. You as the injured victim have the burden to show this. You must prove all this within the structure of the court system which can be a very rigid process. A lot of people damage their personal injury case because they don’t know about the steps involved in the court system, the way procedures happen, how to file motions and pleadings, ways to get credible evidence admitted properly, etc. Every case has a fact pattern but the particulars of your case, regardless of how positive they seem, are pointless if you don’t know proper procedure in getting all the information put into the official record. Remember: it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove and you can’t prove your case if you lack the understanding of the procedure necessary to get all the necessary facts of your case put into court. This is a duty that’s easier said than done and is the exact reason why you need to obtain an attorney to assist with a personal injury case.

What Purpose Does a Personal Injury Lawsuit Serve?

Personal injury lawsuits have two benefits. One, they let victims recover financially for the losses they’ve sustained due to the defendant’s choices. While it sounds bad to say that money can make up for the emotional and medical difficulties you’ve encountered, the fact is that lots of personal injuries create financial stress for victims and their families. Medical costs, repair bills and other kinds of expenses pile up quickly, especially when the victim was the main income earner and hasn’t been back to work due to his or her injuries. Obtaining money from a defendant can help a family deal with these costs following an injury. Second, a personal injury lawsuit provides victims the chance to hold the liable party accountable for their choices. When you punish the defendant for causing your injuries, you decrease the chance he’ll endanger others with the same behavior in the future.

What is a Solvent Defendant?

Since one of the objectives of a personal injury lawsuit is to get money from the party that caused your injuries, it’s usually a waste of time to file a lawsuit when the defendant can’t pay. Let’s say a homeless beggar kicks a huge rock from an overpass, and the rock smashes into your windshield and leads to a wreck. Even if the homeless beggar was definitely at fault for the injuries that happened, there would be no purpose to pursue a lawsuit against the beggar since the beggar is financially unable to assist with your injuries.

When a defendant can’t pay your damages for the compensation for your injuries, the defendant is known as being insolvent. A defendant’s insolvency is a tough situation for an injured plaintiff, but it’s a situation that occasionally happens.

Lots of times, a defendant will try to say they’re insolvent but actually have plenty of money to assist you with your injuries. When some individuals worry they could be caught in a lawsuit because they’ve hurt other people, they take certain steps to hide their assets and look insolvent. Lots of companies do this quickly. If the defendant in your case has done this and you can’t find the true amount of their resources, you probably won’t be able to get what your case is worth. At Grossman Law Offices, our Conroe personal injury lawyers do an asset check of the defendant in virtually every case we work. If the individual responsible for causing your injuries is hiding resources, you can count on us to find them.

How is a Personal Injury Lawsuit Won?

It’s a common false belief that the victim of a personal injury will immediately be able to obtain money from the people that caused their damage. The Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code states that personal injury victims have the ability to get compensation for their injuries, but not necessarily the ability to obtain anything. Since the defendant doesn’t owe you anything automatically, if you want to get compensation for your losses you’ll have to get a positive settlement or verdict.

Most of us are used to watching jury trials in sitcoms and movies, but the truth is that most cases never end up in court. Instead, most are dealt with away from court. Settling your case for a fair sum of money is one option in winning your lawsuit. In a settlement, the defendant agrees to pay a plaintiff a set amount of money for his injuries, without the order of a judge. Along with that, the plaintiff says they won’t sue the defendant for additional money in the future. If you take a fair settlement offer, you’ll save the time, expense and uncertainty that comes with jury trials. However, if you’re manipulated into taking an unethical settlement, you’ll never get the chance to discover what your case is worth. Because of this, it’s critical to have an attorney look over any settlement offer in a Texas personal injury case. Offers you get before you’ve hired an attorney usually are never fair, but they’ll become binding once you take them. The tables change when you obtain an attorney who can use his reputation to pressure the defendant in your case into taking a fair amount.

Getting a fair settlement isn’t like a business transaction. It’s not like negotiating the price of a car or some other purchase. It’s a serious mistake to believe that since you’ve got some kind of business savvy that you’re somehow able to negotiate a fair settlement by yourself. The only thing a defendant is concerned with is paying you more money, especially if you’re involved with the defendant’s insurance company. If they give you a $10,000 offer it’s because they know there’s a strong chance the jury could make them pay $50,000, for instance. When a regular citizen attempts to sue an insurance company or tries to negotiate, they have no leverage. Think about it. If you challenge the world heavyweight champion to fight you in a boxing match, and have never won, he won’t waste his time worrying about you. But if you have a winning track record and have climbed the ranks, he’ll take you way more seriously. But if you have a winning track record and have climbed the ranks, he’ll take you far more seriously. Insurance companies and defense attorneys take the same approach. The Conroe personal injury lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have won cases against literally every big-time US insurance company over the last two decades. Insurers know our name and would usually be inclined to settle cases fairly with our clients than deal with our clients in court.

Some Texas personal injury cases don’t settle, and these cases usually head to court. To succeed in your case at trial, you’ll have to provide evidence to meet your burden of proof on each of the four key elements of a personal injury claim. These elements are duty, breach, causation and damages. Below, we’ll talk about each in more detail.

Duty

To succeed at your case, the first step will be to show what duty of care was owed to you by the defendant. In different scenarios, all of us have various duties to behave in a way that won’t harm or hurt others. The most well known duty of care is the duty to act as a normal person would to avoid injuring others. While the “reasonable person standard” is the most commonly use duty of care, the standard differs depending on the issue at hand and the link between the parties. Here are some instances where the reasonable person standard can’t be used:

• You’ve probably seen signs put up in stores to make sure you don’t get hurt. For instance, a store warns you about a step that’s up ahead, or that a floor was mopped, or that it’s not safe to leave your valuables in your vehicle in the parking lot. Most of us wouldn’t tell our friends to think about these things, so what makes store owners take these precautions? It’s because store owners owe customers visiting their stores a very high duty of care - far more than what we provide house guests who come to our homes. But what if the store’s visitor is a robber who trespasses during the night, instead of a paying customer during the day? Does the store owner still owe the visitor the same caution? Most of the time, the answer is no. The applicable duty of care differs greatly depending on the visitor’s intentions.
• Doctors and other healthcare experts are professionals who’ve spent years learning how to treat and help patients. Because of their training and experience, we want healthcare professionals to use their specialized knowledge when treating and diagnosing their patients. As a result, healthcare workers usually owe a higher duty of care to their patients than what they owe to other people. Because of that, while working, a doctor owes a higher duty of care to their patients than to others. For instance, while working, a doctor must exercise the care of a great physician, and not just the care of a normal person.
• How much care does your employer owe to keep your job-site safe? This answer has a lot to do with your employment status. If you’re salaried employee, your employer owes you a huge duty of care, and has to keep safe working conditions in place for your protection. However, temp workers, contractors and volunteers (under certain circumstances volunteers are given a legal duty) are all responsible for making sure their own working conditions are safe. Employers don’t have to meet that same duty of care to keep a worksite safe.
• How cautious do we have to be when protecting those riding in our vehicles? Some states have different laws pertaining to pay customers and non paying ones who are just our guests. In those states, a driver has to be far more careful in protecting the safety of a paying passenger than he does protecting a friend who needs a lift.
• Kids usually don’t face the same standard of care that applies to adults. Instead, they usually are held to a far lower standard, all contingent on their experience and age. There are exceptions here, though. For instance, kids who are involved in adult activities, like driving a car, will face the same standard as adults.

To understand the duty of care that pertains to your Texas personal injury case, it’s best to talk with an attorney. Texas civil law relies on what’s called joint and several liability. That means numerous defendants can be the proximate cause of a plaintiff’s injuries and the plaintiff can sue all of them. It’s key to talk with a lawyer to make sure you have properly discovered all the key defendants. For example, if you are hurt when your car is hit by a drunk driver, Texas law states you can sue both the drunk driver AND the bar that served the driver to the point of intoxication.

Breach

After you’ve shown which duty of care applies to the defendant in your case, you’ll have to provide evidence to court to show the defendant broken this duty of care you were owed. When the reasonable person standard applies, defendants violate this duty when they do something a normal person wouldn’t do, or fail to take some precaution that a normal person would have to protect others.

There are three ways in which defendants usually break their duty of care. First, a defendant violates his duty of care with negligent behavior. Negligence is what we commonly think of as a mistake or accident. If a defendant is careless just for a second, he can be held liable for the consequences that follow. Second, gross negligence is a much more serious kind of negligence. A defendant has violated his duty of care by doing something grossly negligent if he has behaved in a way that has a huge chance at hurting other people. For instance, a person who drives while drunk is ruled grossly negligent, and violates the duty of care owed to other motorists. Third, a defendant can willfully breach his duty of care. Don’t be surprised when a person intentionally does something to hurt someone else and faces the consequences.

Causation

After you’ve shown that the defendant violated his duty of care you were owed, you’ll have to show his actions caused your injuries. This can become tough, especially when lots of parties could have been involved in your harm. A lot of times defendants attempt to switch the blame from themselves and onto third parties, or perhaps you, so they can avoid responsibility. If you don’t have proper evidence to show it was the defendant who hurt you, you’ll wind up getting defeated.

Damages

Finally, your attorneys will have to show how much you deserve to get in damages from the defendant. The amount of damages is usually fought over in Texas personal injury cases, so it’s key to be able to total your damages and have proof of your injuries so you can be able to show your numbers are on target.

It’s important to provide evidence on every part of your personal injury case when you go to trial. If you don’t provide evidence for even one of these things, your lawsuit will be defeated and you’ll collect nothing with your injuries. An attorney who deals with personal injury cases, like those at Grossman Law Offices, can get the evidence you’ll need to succeed in your case and give that evidence to a jury in a convincing manner.

What Damages are Available to Personal Injury Victims?

There are two types of damages available in the majority of Texas personal injury cases. Special damages are damages that assist the plaintiff for actual, physical economic losses. Lost income, loss of earning capacity, and medical expenses can be compensated with special damages. While these losses are tangible in nature, totaling them can be tough. For instance, damages for loss of earning capacity assist a plaintiff for lost future earnings because of his inability to return to work due to his injuries. A quick way to total loss of earning capacity would be to take the accident victim’s salary before his injuries by the amount of years left until retirement. This method is far too simple, however. The calculation for this manner of damages has to also look at possible promotions and raises the victim could have got if he kept working. The time value of money also has to be looked at. The lawyers at Grossman Law Offices know how to total special damages and include all of these details.

The second form of these damages a plaintiff can get are general damages. General damages assist a plaintiff with the non-economic losses he’s sustained due to a personal injury, like pain and suffering and other kinds of trauma. Because of the intangible nature of this loss, putting a price tag on these injuries isn’t easy and clear-cut. In fact, most of the general damages vary tremendously from case to case, even when the injuries are very similar. To discover what your general damages are, call a veteran personal injury attorney in Conroe.

How Grossman Law Offices can Help

Since we focus on Texas personal injury claims, the lawyers at Grossman Law Offices are especially equipped to deal with all kinds of Texas personal injury cases. We take charge of all the details surrounding our clients’ claims. We know how to locate the defendants who caused your injuries and hold them accountable.

If you’d like additional information about what we can do for you or if you want a free consultation about your specific legal issue, call us today at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free). Since we make sure to have strong communication with personal injury victims, we’re here 24 hours a day, seven days a week to get your calls and answer questions you have.