Personal Injury Attorney Sherman Oaks
Have you suffered an injury or loss due to an accident that was not your fault? You are no longer alone. With Pisegna & Zimmerman, LLC by your side, we will make sure to guide you through every step of your Personal Injury claim.
Understanding your rights to compensation after an accident that someone else caused is essential to be treated fairly by an insurance company. When you work through a claims process, the insurance company will look for every possible way to reduce the amount of money that they offer you for a settlement, in order to protect their own financial interests as opposed to your own medical and financial concerns. When Pisegna and Zimmerman, LLC are representing you through the claims process, you can be confident that every decision and action made is with the intention of maximizing your settlement amount and protecting YOUR interests first.
Read more about personal injury claims and lawsuits in California, and contact us now to schedule an initial consultation as soon as possible.
What Is a Personal Injury?
Personal Injury refers to an injury sustained to the body, mind, or emotions. When a personal injury is caused by another individual or group, the responsible party must pay for the damages that the victim incurs. Typically, this is handled by an insurance company who is representing the responsible party after the accident. The first step towards collecting damages after an accident is filing a claim with the insurance company.
There are some cases where the responsible party is also directly responsible for repayment, such as in the event that the injury happened in a situation that was not covered by insurance, or if the responsible party does not have insurance at all. These cases are less frequent, so we will only be discussing situations where an insurance company is involved. Regardless of whether or not you will be dealing with an insurance company after your own personal injury, contact us now to get the legal support that you need and deserve.
Examples of Personal Injury Cases
The following are a few examples of personal injury cases that typically warrant a settlement, and in some cases result in lawsuits in order to reach an agreement on the compensation that a victim owes. However, if you do not see anything below that resembles your own situation, contact us now.
The basis of a personal injury case is that there was an accident caused by recklessness, negligence, or malice and that there were injuries sustained as a result. If these basic details are present in your situation, then you may have more rights than an insurance company would like you to be aware of.
Car Accidents
After a car accident, it is very important that you contact 911 and that the police are able to complete a comprehensive accident report, especially if there are injuries from the accident. Once fault is established and you are able to move forward with your insurance claim, you will be assigned an insurance adjuster who will investigate the entirety of your claim before making you a settlement offer. As with any claim, they will be actively working to reduce the amount of money that they offer you for a settlement, but with an attorney working on your behalf, you will be able to fight for what you deserve.
Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice cases take a wide range of shapes and can be something like a failure to diagnose a serious illness, misdiagnoses or mistreatment of serious illness, surgical errors, prescription errors, and more. If you have been injured because of negligence or recklessness on behalf of a medical professional such as a doctor, a pharmacist, or any other licensed practitioner, contact us now to learn about your options and limitations for a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Defective Products
Many products come with inherent risks associated with their usage, and these risks are generally explained in detail to the consumer upon purchase, and liability is then transferred to the user in normal circumstances. For example, a producer of a chef’s knife is not liable for someone cutting themselves with the knife as they are dicing onions, because this is an inherent risk of using this product.
However, there are instances where a product does not perform as it is supposed to, and during the normal use of the product, the user can be injured. Common instances of defective product injuries are things like brake malfunctions in cars, faulty pieces in a device, or other things that can cause failure without warning. Typically, a company will recall their defective products in order to avoid widespread lawsuits.
Slip and Fall
A slip and fall accident is just one type of “premise liability” injury, which is a situation where the individual or group responsible for maintaining the safety of a space fail in their duty and either create a hazardous situation or fail to remedy a hazard in an appropriate amount of time, leading to an injury. Some instances of a slip and fall injury are when someone slips on a wet floor, falls on a broken stair tread or handrail, and in colder climates, slips on ice that has not been removed.
In any instance, it is important to determine who is responsible for maintaining the area where the hazard was, prove that they were either aware of the hazard or should have been aware and that they failed to fix the issue appropriately. Once these details are established, you can move forward with your suit in order to get the money you deserve.
Collecting Damages After a Personal Injury
Most typically, you will be able to seek compensation after your injury from an insurance company. You will initiate a claim and be assigned to an adjuster, who will investigate the accident and your injuries before recommending a settlement amount for the insurance company to offer. In most cases, this offer is nowhere near the amount of money that you are actually entitled to. Insurance companies stay in business by maximizing the profitability of their insurance policies, which relies on paying as little as possible for any given claim.
When you are being represented by an attorney, the insurance company recognizes that you have access to experienced legal counsel and that you know what you deserve. While this does not mean that they will immediately offer you everything you deserve, it does mean that you are starting out with more leverage than you would have on your own and that you have an experienced partner through a series of aggressive negotiations. If these negotiations fail, then you and your attorney are already prepared to go to trial to fight for what you deserve after this situation.