Nevada Personal Injury and Wrongful Death
The legal principles for personal injury cases are the same in other states in Nevada. Most think of an automobile accident, but there are many others such as slip and fall cases and those from construction defects. While personal injury cases can range from relatively small to catastrophic injuries, they all arise from negligence claims - which will be discussed below. But first, the most obvious point that should be discussed is taking care of yourself and your recovery. It is obvious that medical treatment should be sought, but people sometimes make the mistake of not getting a proper examination from a medical doctor and instead will seek treatment from a chiropractor. Chiropractors have a wonderful role in assisting in recovery from a personal injury, however they should not be the first line of treatment. In fact many insurance companies will not pay as much money for treatment if only a chiropractor treated the injury based on the assumption one must not have been injured too bad if only a chiropractor treated you. Also, based on the possibility that other injuries may have occurred that a chiropractor is not trained in, there is no substitute for seeing a medical doctor (i.e. M.D. or D.O.). This doctor should then refer you to either a chiropractor or physical therapist or even both and you should not hesitate to request such a referral. Insurance companies view a referral as a full diagnosis that such treatment was needed versus an accident victim self diagnosing themselves and just going to a chiropractor. Reno, Nevada personal injury attorney for car automobile vehicle motorcycle accidents in Sparks, Carson City and Las Vegas.
While many accident and personal injury claims will settle, any claim must be viewed as always requiring a lawsuit in case it does not settle. This is another reason for having a medical doctor do a full examination right after any accident since they will be needed to testify as to your whole body condition. Another common question is who should pay for any treatment. The answer is your own personal insurance should pay for the treatment, especially if you were injured in a car accident and you have a policy that will pay for your medical bills which you being should have. Since you paid for the insurance, you should use it and because you paid for it, any person that injured you cannot take advantage of your being responsible and claim your medical bills are covered. In other words, any person that injured you must still pay you for the harm they cause you even though your medical bills may already be paid by your insurance. This is viewed as though you paid your bills yourself (since you paid for the insurance) and you are entitled to be paid for these bills. This applies to any insurance company paying on behalf of someone that injured you as well. However, if you don't have insurance then other options exist. The insurance company of any person at fault may pay your medical bills directly. If this does not occur, then many health care providers can work with any attorney you hire and put a "lien" on the file which allows them to get paid once the case is resolved. Reno, Nevada personal injury attorney Sparks, Las Vegas, Carson City for car accidents automobile in Sparks, Carson City and Las Vegas.
Now that the obvious has been covered - that you need to properly get examined so you can be properly treated, the rest will fall into place. This may include the need of a personal injury attorney. Insurance companies are not in the business of paying out money. This is where an attorney can help. This occurs in many ways including evaluating a case so you do not under value it or take a low amount from an insurance company, as well as letting you know if you are evaluating your case too high. Sometimes unrealistic expectations occur due to friends giving out opinions or from hearing of other cases such as the infamous case where a woman spilled coffee from a fast food chain in her lap. What many do not know was how horrific her injuries were and that the company knew about their scalding temperature and didn't properly fix it. When you hear about cases people poke fun at, what must be remembered is that the jury (people like you) listened to the case and found a good reason to award a large sum of money. But these cases are not the norm. Reno accident personal injury lawyer attorneys for car accidents for Carson City, Washoe County and Sparks.
Many people, as well as attorneys, just instantly try to settle a case. This may not always be in your best interest. Some injuries take a while to surface and this must be considered. While you do not want to miss any statute of limitations or simply ignore a case and get too busy to deal with it later, there can be advantages in not rushing to the court house to file a lawsuit or to settle. It is important that you discuss with your doctor what injuries may surface in the future. Sometimes these cannot even be predicted by your doctor, so it may be beneficial to find an attorney that understands this and is willing to take the time with your case that is needed out into the future and to insure you do not miss any statute of limitations. Reno Washoe County personal injury accident attorney lawyers in Sparks and Carson City.
As presented above, many different types of accidents obviously cause personal injuries other than car accidents. However they are all basically negligence claims. Not all personal injuries are caused by negligence, even though most are. Sometimes accidents just happen and no one is at fault. If no one caused the accident, i.e. no one was negligent, then you do not have a personal injury claim. But you may need an attorney to help resolve whether someone is legally responsible for your injury. An example of this is when a patient is injured during surgery. Whether or not the doctor committed malpractice and caused the injury of course needs to be investigated. However, sometimes people do not do well with surgery and it was not caused by any improper care by the doctor. Surgery just has its own inherent risks. But again, as in any type of injury, it must be thoroughly investigated since very few people admit to any wrongdoing. Personal injury attorney attorneys lawyers in Nevada, Reno, Sparks, Carson City and Washoe County lawyer attorney.