At the Cochran Firm in Philadelphia, we specialize in helping people seek justice after they’ve suffered injuries because of the negligence of others. There are many different kinds of personal injury lawsuits, and they vary significantly in terms of how we, as personal injury lawyers, must approach them.
Here, we’ve looked at the five most common types of personal injury claims we deal with.
There were over 115,000 reported car crashes in Pennsylvania in 2022, according to the state Department of Transportation. More than 67,000 people suffered injuries in these collisions, and 1,179 people died.
When you get in a car accident, your first priority should be to file an insurance claim. In many cases, however, the payout you receive from your insurer will not be sufficient to cover all the economic damages associated with your accident.
It’s important to note that motor insurance companies in Pennsylvania offer both full tort and limited tort policies. If yours is a limited tort policy, you may not be entitled to file a personal injury claim if you receive insurance benefits, though there are certain exceptions to this rule. If you’re not sure how the law will apply in your case, you should schedule a free initial consultation with one of our auto accident lawyers.
Millions of people are injured in slip and fall accidents every year; incidents like these are the leading cause of injury-related death for adults age 65 and older.
If you suffer a fall on someone else’s property because of some form of negligence, you may be entitled to file a claim. For example, if you slip on a wet patch of floor in a store, and the store did not take adequate measures to make the area safe (by cleaning it up or putting up a “wet floor” sign), you should be entitled to compensation.
Common slip and fall injuries include:
Work injuries are somewhat different from the other categories of personal injuries discussed in this post. If you suffer an injury or become ill at work, your first priority when seeking redress will be workers’ compensation, rather than a personal injury lawsuit. Workers’ comp may cover a portion of your lost earnings, medical bills, and other costs.
It’s important to note that you should still be entitled to workers’ compensation even if your employer was not negligent in any way. The only requirement is that you suffered your illness or injury because of your workplace activities.
A caveat to be aware of is that you cannot generally benefit from workers’ compensation and file a personal injury claim as well. Once you accept workers’ compensation, you usually forfeit the right to file a lawsuit.
However, this isn’t always the case. You may be entitled to file a personal injury lawsuit following a workplace incident if:
Medical malpractice occurs when a healthcare provider deviates from the accepted standard of care and a patient suffers harm as a result. Medical negligence can take various forms, including:
To succeed in a medical negligence case, you must be able to prove that the inadequate care you received caused your condition to worsen or created entirely new health issues. This can sometimes be difficult, as it can be challenging to clearly show the effects of the improper care you received distinctly from the symptoms of your original condition.
For this reason, we have a network of top-class medical consultants who provide guidance and independent opinions on cases like these. If you want to learn how this might work in your case, please schedule a free initial consultation.
Defective products cause serious injuries and death to thousands of Americans every year. Consider the example of Takata airbags. These faulty safety devices made their way into tens of millions of vehicles before it was discovered that they posed a significant explosion risk. As of the most recent update from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), these airbags have caused 27 deaths in the U.S. alone.
If you’ve been injured by a faulty product, you should check whether it has been recalled. Additionally, you should find out if any class action lawsuits have been undertaken by others who have suffered the same fate as you because of the product in question.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues we’ve discussed here, or by another type of personal injury, we can help. Contact us today by filling out our online contact form or calling 800-969-4400.
