Do You Have a Case? Understanding Your Legal Rights After an Injury

Suffering an injury can impact your life in unexpected ways. Not only can injuries cause severe pain and lead to expensive medical bills, but they can also lead to lost earnings, emotional trauma, and other financial and non-financial losses.

This makes it critically important to make sure you know your legal rights.

In many cases, injury victims will be entitled to compensation for their financial and non-financial losses. But if you have a claim, you won’t receive any compensation unless you take legal action. Understanding your legal rights is the first step toward making informed decisions about what to do next.

What Are Your Legal Rights After an Injury?

So, what are your legal rights after an injury? Here’s what you need to know:

1. You Have the Right to Uncover the Truth

If you were injured in an accident, you have the right to uncover the truth about why the accident happened. This means that you have the right to investigate, and you have the right to obtain additional evidence through the “discovery” process in civil litigation.

Conducting an investigation and obtaining evidence through discovery both require legal representation—you should not try to handle these steps on your own. Once you hire an injury lawyer to represent you, your lawyer will be able to get to work gathering the evidence needed to seek just compensation on your behalf.

2. You Have the Right to Find Out What Company is Legally Responsible

Along with uncovering why the accident happened, you also have the right to find out what company is legally responsible for your injury. Product manufacturers, property owners, trucking companies, cruise lines, airlines, drug companies, healthcare providers and other businesses can all be held liable for accident victims’ injuries in appropriate cases.

3. You Have the Right to Take All Necessary Legal Action

Once you have the information you need, you have the right to take all necessary legal action. You can file a lawsuit against each company that is legally responsible for your losses, and you can fight to hold these companies accountable in court.

With that said, as a practical matter, seeking financial compensation for an accident-related injury often involves dealing with the at-fault party’s insurance company. In fact, most successful injury claims settle without going to court. So, while you can take legal action if necessary, you may also be able to focus your efforts on securing an insurance settlement that avoids the need to go to trial.

4. You Have the Right to Seek Full Compensation for Your Losses

Whether you have an insurance claim or you need to go to court, you have the right to seek full compensation for your losses. This includes all of the financial and non-financial costs of your injury. Once you hire a lawyer to represent you, your lawyer will be able to calculate “just” compensation for the medical bills, lost earnings, pain and suffering, and other losses you are entitled to recover.

5. You Have the Right to Hire an Injury Lawyer to Represent You

When you need to seek financial compensation for losses related to a serious injury, you have the right to hire an injury lawyer to handle your case on your behalf. You should be able to hire a lawyer on a contingency-fee basis, which means that you should not have to pay anything out-of-pocket for your legal representation. With contingency-fee representation, your legal fees and costs will be deducted from the compensation your lawyer helps you recover (if your case is successful). Otherwise, you owe nothing.

Depending on how you got injured, you may be eligible to hire a lawyer to file a mass tort claim. These claims typically involve dangerous and defective products, although they can involve other injury risks as well. In mass tort cases, injury lawyers represent multiple clients who have similar claims, and this allows their clients to share the costs involved. Again, however, you will not have to pay anything unless your case is successful.

You Need to Be Careful to Protect Your Legal Rights if You Have a Case

If you have a claim for your injury, you will need to be careful to protect your legal rights going forward. If you make mistakes, you could lose the ability to recover the financial compensation you deserve. To protect your legal rights, you should:

• Seek Treatment for Your Injury – When you have an injury claim, you have the right to seek treatment from a doctor of your choosing. Seeking treatment promptly is important for protecting your health and your legal rights.
• Follow Your Doctor’s Advice – Once you have a treatment plan, following your doctor’s advice is important for protecting your health and your legal rights as well. If you ignore your doctor’s advice, the insurance companies may be able to blame you for some of your losses.
• Avoid Talking to the Insurance Companies – While seeking just compensation for your injury may involve filing an insurance claim, at this point, you should not be talking to the insurance companies directly—you should let your lawyer do the talking for you. They are not on your side, and they will try to get you to say things they can use against you.
• Avoid Posting on Social Media – Along with avoiding the insurance companies, you should also avoid posting on social media. The insurance companies may be monitoring your accounts as another way to try to use your own words against you.  
• Talk to an Injury Lawyer Promptly – Hiring an injury lawyer promptly is one of the easiest and best ways to protect your legal rights after an accident. Once again, this should not cost you anything out-of-pocket, and you should not have to pay anything unless you win.

Discuss Your Case with an Experienced Injury Lawyer at Searcy Denney for Free

So, do you have a case for your injury? If you have questions about your legal rights, we strongly encourage you to contact us for a free consultation. Call 800-780-8607 or contact us online to speak with an experienced injury lawyer at Searcy Denney as soon as possible.