Personal Injury Attorneys in Columbus, Ohio
As tacky as some law firms’ TV ads running during the 5 o’clock local news can be, they drive home one essential truth: You really do need a Columbus personal injury lawyer if you have been hurt in an accident caused by someone else.
Insurance companies use every legal trick available to avoid paying claims. When they cannot get off scot-free, insurers put a great deal of pressure on already vulnerable and financially struggling victims to accept lowball settlements that will not help people fully recover. Only working with an experienced, caring, and hardworking Leist Warner personal injury lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, will protect your legal rights and get you the adequate compensation that you deserve.
People and Companies Who Cause You Harm Must Be Held Accountable
Accidents never just happen. Even when no intent to injure or kill exists, some act of negligence or recklessness always sets the stage for the event that left someone hospitalized or dead. Often, determining exactly what happened and who bears responsibility for the damage requires conducting an intensive investigation and one or more court cases. Going through the process of trying to hold an individual or company liable for being negligent or reckless without assistance from a Leist Warner personal injury lawyer in Columbus, Ohio, automatically gives the advantage to the person or organization that should be on defense.
Some of the most common situations that lead to needing help from a personal injury lawyer in Columbus are:
- Car accidents
- Commercial vehicle and truck accidents, including tractor-trailers, construction and farm vehicles, and buses
- Motor vehicle accidents, including motorcycles, mopeds, and boats
- Dog and animal attacks
- Premises liability cases, which are more usually referred to as slip and fall cases
- Workplace injuries
- Wrongful deaths
Collisions on Ohio roads and highways give rise to the majority of both personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, and also represent the reason every driver in the Buckeye State is required to carry a minimum amount of automobile insurance. During 2014, more than 282,000 crashes happened in the state. Nearly 70,000 of those caused injuries, and more than 900 proved fatal for at least one person involved. When those wrecks involved semi or city work trucks, sorting out liability and insurance issues was almost certainly complicated. Commercial drivers are often independent contractors who carry their own policies, and vehicles often get insured separately from the loads they carry. Beyond that, government vehicles and workers may have some immunity from lawsuits. A dedicated Leist Warner personal injury attorney in Columbus will know how to handle those complexities and get victims the answers they need.
Payments Can Cover Much More Than Doctor’s Bills
Ohio state law defines what victims can seek in terms of payments from the people or companies that harmed them. The money usually comes from an insurance company, but individuals can also be held financially liable for paying judgments and settlements.
Under a category called compensatory damages, victims can sue for the value of:
- Medical bills
- Disability care
- Loss of an arm, leg, eye or other body part
- Physical or mental illness
- Physical therapy
- Income replacement
- Property damage
A second type of payments are called nonmonetary damages, because exact dollar figures for what represents fair compensation cannot be determined by totaling up hospital bills and calculating wages lost due to having to miss work. Nonmonetary damages can be punitive—levied as punishment—or awarded in recognition of pain and suffering. The amounts of the latter kind of nonmonetary damages can be capped, especially in medical malpractice cases.
Personal Injury Cases Differ From Criminal Trials
Here are three things every personal injury victim and family member of someone who suffered a wrongful death needs to know:
- Criminal convictions are not needed to prove civil liability.
- All the evidence collected in the course of a criminal investigation can be used by a plaintiff in a civil lawsuit.
- The standard of proof in a civil court case is “preponderance of the evidence,” which is lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof used in criminal cases.
A Leist Warner personal injury lawyer in Columbus, OH, knows how to make all these facts work in in the favor of plaintiffs.
Contact Leist Warner When You Need a Personal Injury Attorney in Columbus, OH
Never file a civil lawsuit or accept an initial settlement offer from an insurance company without first speaking with a Leist Warner personal injury attorney in Columbus, Ohio. Organizations paying claims for property damage, injuries, and deaths make minimizing expenses their top priority. If you or a loved one suffered harm, you need someone who can serve as your champion and who will make meeting your needs his or her most important job.
A lawyer with Leist Warner could be your legal advocate. Contact us by calling (614) 222-1000 or filling out this form. We cannot take every case, but we always offer no-cost consultations.
