Salt Lake City Personal Injury Lawyer

Even a relatively minor injury can be painful, expensive, and disruptive to your life. Sometimes accidents are impossible to predict or avoid, but in many cases, they happen due to another party’s negligence. Unfortunately, if you’ve been hurt by someone else’s oversight, you might pay the price for their mistake. A personal injury lawyer can help you pursue compensation for your damages so you can move on with your life. Valley Law Accident and Injury Lawyers in Salt Lake City will help you secure your legal victory.

What Kinds of Cases Can a Salt Lake City Personal Injury Attorney Help With?

There is no shortage of ways a person can be injured. Whether or not you have a strong case for a personal injury suit depends on our ability to prove another party was at fault, not the type of accident. However, here are some of the more common situations we see in personal injury cases:

Car and Motor Vehicle Accidents

These can include car accidents and collisions involving semis or other large trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles traveling on the roadways. We also see cases where a pedestrian, bicyclist, or motorcycle rider was struck by a motor vehicle.

Proving fault in a motor vehicle accident is sometimes challenging, especially if the other driver insists you are at fault. Remember that their car insurance company will want to believe them because it gives the insurance carrier an excuse to deny your claim. You should also know that Utah uses modified comparative negligence statutes for personal injury cases, including car accidents. 

How does it work? Under the state’s rules for modified comparative negligence, an injured party can collect damages only if they are less than 50 percent at fault for an accident. They will lose any percentage of fault they had in the accident. So if you were 10 percent at fault, you could collect 90 percent of your damages. The result is that if the other driver’s insurance company claims you were at fault, they don’t have to convince anyone that you were totally responsible in order to reduce their liability.

Modified comparative negligence applies to other types of personal injury cases as well, but car insurance companies are particularly good at using it to their advantage. Fortunately, a Salt Lake City personal injury attorney can help by gathering evidence and making a case that you were not to blame for the accident.

Construction Site and Workplace Accidents

Roofers, construction workers, and construction helpers are all in the top 25 most dangerous jobs in the US. However, you can get hurt in almost any job, and that includes car accidents that occur while you are driving somewhere on a work task.

If you are a W2 employee and you are hurt at work, you should qualify for workers’ compensation, a no-fault system designed to provide compensation for injured workers without a lengthy lawsuit. While you do not have to prove fault in a workers’ comp claim, there are still multiple reasons your claim can be denied, such as:

• The employer or their insurance carrier believes you are faking or your injuries actually occurred when you were not at work.
• The insurance company thinks some of your medical care was “unnecessary” or that your injuries aren’t that serious.
• While being at fault for your accident doesn’t necessarily mean your claim will be denied under the no-fault system, you can be rejected if the employer or insurance company claims you were intoxicated at work or that you caused your injuries on purpose.
• Another frequent reason for denials is that the paperwork wasn’t submitted on time. If you think the HR person at your company will stay on top of things and remind you when your workers’ comp claim needs to be filed, think again. You should report your injury to your supervisor immediately, or as soon as you reasonably can after the accident, and begin your claim just as quickly.
• Sometimes the employer denies that the accident or injury happened at all, especially in situations where there were no witnesses.

If your claim has been denied, your employer is giving you the runaround about filing the paperwork, or you want to make sure your paperwork is correct, a workers’ compensation attorney can help you fight for your right to workers’ compensation benefits. 

Additionally, we will review your case to learn if you may have a third-party claim. While the workers’ comp system prevents most lawsuits against employers for on-the-job injuries, you can still sue a third party for damages not covered by workers’ comp. You will need to be able to present evidence that the third party was responsible for your injury. For example, if you were using a piece of equipment that malfunctioned and caused your injury, and we found evidence the equipment’s defect led to the accident, you might have a case against the equipment manufacturer.

Dangerous Drugs, Medical Devices, or Medical Malpractice

Many people suffer injuries or even death due to medical mistakes or defective products. In fact, it’s estimated that medical mistakes alone could cause up to 251,000 deaths a year and even more injuries. Another 128,000 people die from drugs prescribed to them, and about 2.74 million people suffer serious adverse drug reactions each year.

Unfortunately, it can be challenging to determine what happened when you’ve suffered an unexpected, severe complication. Sometimes providers attribute a complication or adverse reaction to the patient’s original diagnosis or give a vague explanation like, “Complications can happen with surgery.” While this is true, complications can also arise because the surgeon made a mistake, because the patient was given the wrong medication or dosage, or because of a defective medical device, and these situations aren’t always made clear to the patient.

If you’re wondering whether you experienced medical malpractice or an unexpected side effect from a medication or device, a Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer can help you learn more about what happened and your options moving forward.

Premises Liability

These cases occur when someone is injured on another party’s property. Slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall accidents are very common, but you can be injured in various ways due to the property owner’s negligence. Inadequate security is another frequent issue – if you are the victim of a crime in a public place like a store or hotel, the business may be at fault for failing to provide enough security.

The owner of a business or private residence has a duty of care to ensure the property is reasonably safe for visitors. If they fail to do so, they could be liable. In most cases, homeowner’s or business insurance will cover your damages, but you will need to demonstrate the owner was negligent.

Boating Accidents

Lakes and waterways in the Salt Lake City area offer opportunities for fun and recreation, but if a boating excursion goes wrong, you could be seriously injured. Following a boat crash, you may struggle to remember what happened or how, and it’s not always easy to determine fault. Potentially liable parties include:

• The boat’s owner
• The boat’s operator
• Another boat’s operator (if they struck your craft)
• The boat manufacturer
• A company that incorrectly performed maintenance on the boat

Additionally, you may or may not be covered by boat insurance, depending on the situation and the type of coverage on the boat. Sorting out fault can be complicated, but your boating accident lawyer can help determine the cause and explain your options for pursuing compensation.

How Does a Personal Injury Attorney Prove Fault in a Personal Injury Case?

Four elements of negligence must be established in any personal injury case:

• The defendant (the person or entity you’re suing) had a duty of care toward you. This typically means that the other party had a duty to make reasonable efforts to keep others safe. Depending on the situation, this could mean obeying traffic laws and driving carefully, warning guests about a safety hazard on a property, installing a security system in case of emergencies at a business, etc.
• The defendant failed in this duty or didn’t take reasonable care to protect others.
• This failure led to your injuries.
• You suffered real damages as a result of these injuries. Damages might include medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and more.

Your lawyer’s investigative team will gather evidence to prove these four points. They may interview witnesses, request black box data from a car accident, look at other electronic evidence like smartphone records, and search for photos or videos of an accident. If there is a way to prove your case, we’ll find it.

Get Help From Our Personal Injury Law Firm in Salt Lake City

At Valley Law, we work to fight injustice and stand up for those who are injured. Founding attorney Brigham Richards is experienced in insurance claims negotiation and litigation and treats every client as his most important. He can assist clients who speak English or Spanish.

Please contact Valley Law Accident and Injury Lawyers for a free consultation about your injuries and options for moving forward at 801-810-9999.