Houston Personal Injury Lawyer

Attorney Michael Grossman on Texas Personal Injury Law and What to do if You've Been Injured

If you’ve been injured in any way due to the negligence of another individual or entity, you likely have merit in seeking compensation for the financial losses you’ve sustained as a result of that injury through a personal injury lawsuit.

Through such a lawsuit, you could be compensated for medical bills, lost wages due to time off from work, your pain and suffering, or other damages you’ve likely incurred. However, seeking such compensation can prove challenging for a non-attorney or an inexperienced lawyer since personal injury law is intricate and the defensive teams often encountered in these types of cases can be aggressive in the defense of their clients’ assets. As such, having an experienced Houston personal injury lawyer like Michael Grossman can prove beneficial toward seeking compensation for your injury. With 20 years of personal injury law experience, Grossman Law Offices is ready to assist you in your personal injury accident case.

What is a Personal Injury?

A personal injury can be physical, mental, or emotional and must have been caused by the negligence of another party. Texas auto accidents are a common cause of personal injuries, as are on-the-job accidents. However, there are many other types of Houston accidents that occur every day that result in a victim suffering an injury. In Texas, an injured person can seek legal action for their injury against the negligent party or parties through a personal injury lawsuit. Such action is sought so that the injured victim can be compensated for the damages, i.e. financial losses, that they’ve incurred as a result of the injury. However, it should be noted that defendants in such cases do not owe anything to an injured victim unless legal action has been initiated by the victim in order to compel the negligent entity to award such compensation. In other words, the injured victim must seek legal action to be compensated for their injury and cannot simply wait for compensation to come. Furthermore, once a personal injury case has been brought against a negligent party, the plaintiff’s legal representation must then be able to establish the liability of the defendant in regards to the plaintiff’s injury. In other words, the defendant must be proven to have been a direct or proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury.

Do I Have a Personal Injury Case?

If a liable party violated their legal duty to a victim through a form of negligence, resulting in that victim sustaining an injury that caused the victim some type of financial loss, then a personal injury lawsuit can be brought against the negligent party. For example, auto accidents causing injury most often occur due to the negligent driving of one individual. In such instances, the liable driver is said to have violated their legal duty to the injured victim in regards to public safety. As such, the driver can be held liable for the victim’s injury through a Houston personal injury lawsuit.

However, seeking compensation through such a lawsuit requires that the plaintiff’s legal representation is able to prove that the defendant both owed a legal duty and violated that legal duty. In other words, the burden of proof in a personal injury case lies on the shoulders of the plaintiff, and not the defendant. As such, a plaintiff is well-served by an experienced Houston personal injury lawyer like Michael Grossman who has 20 years of personal injury experience. Proving a legal duty can sometimes be challenging depending on the specifics of the accident, since a legal duty owed or violated can vary based on the unique circumstances of the injury and the relationship of those involved in the accident. For example, a doctor cannot cut you with a knife while you’re waiting in line for a movie; however, the doctor can cut you with a knife if you’re voluntarily undergoing surgery in their care. While the injury itself is identical, the circumstances surrounding the injury are radically different, meaning that the legal duty owed and violated is also radically different. Ascertaining such details is a vital aspect toward any Houston personal injury case, and it can oftentimes take the careful work of a Houston personal injury lawyer like Michael Grossman in order to prove what legal duty was owed and how that duty was violated.

Furthermore, personal injury cases can oftentimes be quite intricate depending on the specifics of the accident causing injury. For example, if a construction worker is injured in a Houston construction site accident, then the employer may be liable for not providing for their worker’s safety. However, if the construction worker is a contractor, then the contractor is responsible for their own safety while on a job site, meaning that an employer will then, likely, not be held liable for the worker’s injury. In order to have the context of a personal injury properly assessed, it’s important to have an experienced Houston personal injury lawyer like Michael Grossman on your side to help you understand what your possible legal options may be so that you can stand to be fully and fairly compensated for your injury.

Houston Personal Injury Cases Must Contain Three Certain Elements

In every successful personal injury case, three specific aspects must be part of the case: liability, damages, and solvency. Like a stool with three legs, if any one of these aspects is missing, then the case won’t be able to stand up in a court of law.

Liability and the Forms of Negligence in a Houston Personal Injury Accident Case

When a defendant has violated a legal duty owed to a plaintiff, and the plaintiff has incurred financial loss, i.e. damages, as a result of that violation, the defendant is said to be liable for the injured person’s damages. Liability simply means who’s at fault for an accident causing injury. Sometimes it’s only one party, while at other times there can be many parties who may have all contributed in some form to the accident. In a majority of personal injury accidents, a violation of a legal duty owed is often a result of standard negligence, or carelessness. In other words, the defendant experienced a moment of inattention, and that moment led to your accident. For example, standard negligence occurs when a driver becomes momentarily distracted, perhaps by a text message, and causes a wreck.

Defendants can also violate a legal duty owed through gross negligence. This means that the defendant engaged in behavior that they knew would likely result in an accident causing injury. Drivers that choose to drink and drive and cause Houston drunk driving accidents are guilty of gross negligence since they’re aware that their actions have the ability to cause an accident. Furthermore, deliberate actions to cause harm, such as assault with a deadly weapon, are classified as committing and intentional or deliberate tort, which is yet another way that a defendant can violate their legal duty toward a plaintiff. In a Houston personal injury case, liability must be established, and that means that your legal representation must be able to show how the defendant’s negligence resulting in your injury.

Assessing Damages in a Houston Personal Injury Accident Case

Next, damages must have been incurred by an injured victim. Damages does not refer to the actual injury sustained. Instead, it refers to the financial losses associated with that injury, such as medical bills or lost wages. In Houston personal injury cases, there are two types of damages for which compensation can be sought: general damages and special damages.

General damages can include physical impairment, loss of consortium, disfigurement, emotional suffering, pain and suffering, or any combination of the afore-mentioned depending on the specific types of damages incurred. General damages are often quite subjective, which means that you’ll likely need the capable experience of a Houston personal injury lawyer in order to faithfully calculate general damages. General damages are subjective due to the unique circumstances of each personal injury case. For example, a firefighter may save a child from a burning building, and both of them may suffer the same amount of burns. However, it can be argued that the firefighter suffered less emotional distress than the child, since the firefighter was prepared to suffer an injury in performing his job. In other words, the injured child would likely stand to receive more in general damages due to an increased amount of emotional distress. Justifying general damages can be challenging for lesser-experienced attorneys, but Houston personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman has two decades of experience in being able to tally and justify such damages so that an injured person can stand to be compensated for their injury.

Special damages, on the other hand, are often more easily calculated since a specific financial amount often already exists. For instance, special damages can be sought for medical bills, both past and future, court fees, property damages costs, lost wages, or lost earning potential. Seeking special damages is important in a Houston personal injury accident case since the compensation awarded can be put to quick use in paying off bills an injured person may have already received. However, not all special damages are as straightforward as medical bills. For example, loss of future earnings can be simply calculated as an injured worker’s current salary multiplied by the number of years that could have reasonably continued to work had not a debilitating injury prevented them from doing so. However, such a base calculation does not take into account likely raises or promotions. With the help of an experienced Houston personal injury lawyer like Michael Grossman, such an argument can be made so that a worker that is unable to return to work due to a sustained injury will be fairly compensated for their lost future income.

Both general damages and special damages can be sought in a personal injury lawsuit in Houston, TX. When Houston personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman and his team at Grossman Law Offices take on a personal injury case, we will formulate an itemized list of your damages, and will submit a demand packet to the defendant or their insurer so that they’ll be apprised of the amount of compensation we’re asking for on your behalf. By ensuring that all damages are faithfully calculated, we work towards seeing you fairly compensated for your injury so that you can get back to living your life without suffering further financial stress.

Proving Solvency in a Houston Personal Injury Accident Case

Solvency means that a defendant has the financial means to be able to pay compensation to a plaintiff if the personal injury case results in a favorable outcome for the plaintiff. If a defendant is not solvent, then no compensation can be won since the defendant wouldn’t be able to pay for it. As an example, a personal injury lawsuit cannot be brought against a homeless person because it’s more than likely that such a person would not have the financial means to be able to compensate an injured individual for their incurred damages. While the homeless person may be wholly liable for the accident and the victim may have suffered real injuries resulting in some type of financial loss, the lack of a defendant’s solvency prevents a personal injury lawsuit from being brought against such a defendant.

However, unscrupulous defense attorneys can use solvency as a means to assist their clients in escaping liability for an accident causing injury. For example, such a defense lawyer, or the defendant themselves, may choose to hide their financial means and claim to be insolvent so that they won’t be held accountable for compensating the victim. When Houston personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman works a personal injury case in which a defendant may be claiming insolvency, we’ll work to verify their claim, either through an asset check (which we often do on every defendant anyways) or through working to discover a defendant’s financial means through other routes. In other words, we’ll make sure that a defendant isn’t possibly lying about their solvency so that they can be held responsible for your injury.

If You’ve Been Injured in a Houston Accident, Contact Grossman Law Offices

Don’t assume that you may be able to represent yourself in a personal injury case in Texas. Many that have attempted to do so have found themselves with claims that have been denied or cases that have been dismissed because they weren’t aware of key pieces of information or certain processes that must be closely followed so that such an outcome doesn’t happen. Knowing the law is only one side of a coin; being able to competently apply that law is the other side. Personal injury cases do not rest on speculation, but on proof, and a non-attorney often does not have the investigative resources that an experienced Texas personal injury law firm does. Furthermore, an attorney’s reputation often goes a long way in assisting a client, since a well-experienced attorney will have built up a reputation over the years of their practice in personal injury law. For example, many insurers and defense attorneys are familiar with Houston personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman and often offer our clients out-of-court settlements instead of meeting our lawyers in court.

Contact us at 1-855-392-0000 (toll free) for a free legal consultation. With 20 years of experience in Texas personal injury cases, Houston personal injury lawyer Michael Grossman and his team at Grossman Law Offices are ready to help you seek compensation for your injury from all liable parties so that you can start, or continue, to recover from your injury and get back to living your life. Don’t let your current suffering result in further financial strain. Contact Grossman Law Offices.