Filing a Personal Injury Claim

If You've Been Injured, Houston Attorney Micahel Grossman can Help You File a Personal Injury Claim

Knowing whether or not you may have a valid reason to file a personal injury lawsuit in Houston can be a challenging issue, especially if you’ve never been in a similar situation before. However, there are only three aspects that must have occurred in order for you to be able to pursue legal action against a liable party:

1. You must have experienced some type of injury.
   An injury is often physical in nature, such as a broken bone, but it can also be mental or emotional. Often, mental and emotional duress is experienced in tandem with a physical injury, and such issues are taken into account in the course of a personal injury lawsuit. In some instances, such as auto accidents that do no result in physical harm, a victim may have lasting emotional or mental repercussions for which compensation could be sought. An injury must be able to be proven to have occurred.
   
   
2. A duty of care was owed to you by a liable party and the liable party violated that legal duty.
   The notion of legal duty can be a little tricky because it is so highly dependent on the circumstances and relationships involved in an accident. Generally speaking, every Texan owes every other Texas a legal duty for public safety. When one downtown Houston driver crashes into a bicyclist, the car driver is said to have violated their legal duty they owed to the bicyclist for public safety. In many personal injury cases, it is the legal duty for public safety that has been violated in some way. However, other legal duties can exist dependent on the details of the accident. For example, a doctor is allowed to cut you while you’re on an operating table; they’re not allowed to cut you when you’re at the bus stop. While the injury is the same, the legal duty owed is vastly dependent in regards to the particular circumstances of the accident. Consequently, different legal duties can exist between each party involved in an accident causing injury. Each defendant must have violated the legal duty they owed to the plaintiff.
   
   Legal duties are most often violated through some type of negligent behavior, which can be defined as careless of reckless actions or inaction. A distracted driver would likely be guilty of standard negligence. A drunk driver would likely be guilty of gross negligence, since they knew prior to the accident that drinking and driving greatly increases the risk of an injurious or fatal auto accident happening. A liable party’s negligent behavior must be connected to the accident that has caused your injury.
   
   
3. You must have experienced some type of economic loss as a result of sustaining an injury.
   The stated goal of a personal injury lawsuit in Houston, TX is for the injured party to receive compensation for the damages they’ve incurred due to the negligent behavior of a liable party. As such, an injured victim must have incurred some type of financial loss, or else there’s no reason to seek compensation from a liable party. Such damages, as these economic losses are called in the legal realm, can include a number of issues like medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Such damages must be “proved up,” meaning that they must be able to be justified to a judge or jury.

If you have reason to believe that the three afore-mentioned aspects exist in your accident, consider contacting our Houston personal injury attorneys. With two decades of experience in personal injury law, we can help you understand whether or not you may have merit in proceeding with a personal injury lawsuit in Houston.