Suffering a personal injury can profoundly affect the rest of your life. Even if you don’t face any permanent consequences from your injury, the financial toll of a serious injury can continue to haunt you for years to come. Recovering fair compensation after an accident is key to getting your life back to normal and moving forward.
If you have suffered a personal injury, reach out to the 1Law St. George office today. We have helped countless personal injury victims get the money they need after an accident. Our St. George personal injury lawyers will deal with the insurance companies and file all the necessary paperwork to help you recover fair compensation.
From the moment you hire a St. George personal injury attorney until the moment you recover compensation, they will be hard at work on your case. One of the first things your lawyer will do after you hire them is open an investigation into your case. The purpose of this investigation will be to determine who is liable for your damages and gather evidence to support your claim.
After completing their investigation, your attorney will proceed to assess the damages you have suffered and calculate the total value of your injury claim. Then, your lawyer will either submit a claim to the at-fault party’s insurer or file a lawsuit with the court.
Should you choose to pursue a lawsuit, the next steps your attorney will take will be to go through the pre-trial process and then represent you in court. Of course, your case may never reach trial. Throughout every step of the process, your attorney will be in contact with the legal representative from the other side, attempting to negotiate a fair settlement agreement.
Fortunately, personal injury lawyers in St. George operate differently from most other types of lawyers. You don’t have to worry about your lawyer charging you a fortune for every minute they spend working on your case. Instead, your personal injury lawyer will work on a contingency fee basis, which means they will only collect a fee if they get you money.
If your lawyer does succeed in securing compensation for you, their fee will be assessed as a prearranged percentage of your payout. You will never pay your personal injury attorney a penny out of your own pocket.
With a contingency fee payment system, you can feel confident that your lawyer will do everything possible to ensure that you get the money you deserve. Since your lawyer collects a larger fee with every extra dollar they get for you, you can rest assured that they will do what they can to get you as much money as possible.
In the majority of personal injury cases in Utah, accident victims have four years from the date of the accident to collect compensation under Utah Code Ann. §78B-2-307. However, special circumstances can severely alter this timeline. For example, you will have far less time to file a lawsuit for an accident where the at-fault party was a government agency.
Even in cases where you do have the full four years to file a lawsuit, it is going to be in your best interest to hire an attorney shortly after your accident so that they can get started as soon as possible. That will put your lawyer in the best position to collect all evidence before it can become lost and record witness testimony while the event is still fresh in their minds.
After suffering a personal injury, you will likely be eligible to claim a wide variety of damages. Which damages apply to your case will depend on the specifics of your situation. All the damages you may be able to claim can be split among three major categories: economic, non-economic, and punitive.
Economic damages are the monetary losses that you suffered. These are the things that directly affect your financial situation, and the aim of recovering these damages is to offset the financial cost dollar for dollar. Common economic damages include:
Calculating the true cost of non-economic damages is far more difficult. These are the losses you suffer that impact your daily life outside your bank account. No amount of money can truly replace these damages because the loss is far more profound.
However, since a financial award is the only tool available to our justice system in these cases, non-economic damages tend to make up the bulk of a personal injury compensation package. Common non-economic damages include:
In some cases, accident victims may also be entitled to punitive damages. Unlike economic and non-economic damages, which are both compensatory in nature, punitive damages are more focused on the person responsible for the accident rather than the victim.
These damages are not meant to compensate the victim for any losses but rather to punish the at-fault party. Punitive damages are only awarded in cases of extreme negligence or where the at-fault party acted with blatant disregard for public safety.
When facing a personal injury, the best action you can take is to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer to represent your interests and help you recover fair compensation. At 1Law, our St. George personal injury attorneys have helped countless accident victims get back on their feet after an injury.
Give us a call, fill out our online contact form, or use our free chat tool to get started. We offer free, no-obligation consultation, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us today.