The Florida Personal Injury Guide was created by Serrano Law to help residents who have been injured obtain maximum compensation for their claim.
Law Office Located In Lutz
Getting hurt can truly be life altering. We are sorry you have to go through this. Just being in this amount of pain can be more than enough to deal with. Our Florida personal injury lawyers want to fight for your rights to get full and fair compensation. Call us today to set up a free first consultation to get started.
Tips for a Successful Outcome for Your Claim
Feeling helpless after being hurt by someone else who was acting negligent or careless is actually quite common, unfortunately. We really feel for you. It is a tough spot. But please know that you can do things to help the success of your claim and that you are not without help.
First thing we urge everyone who has been hurt to do is seek medical attention as soon as possible. Ideally, you should seek medical care immediately after your accident; the sooner, the better. Your health is paramount.
When we ask the insurance company for a fair settlement, we need to have an idea what your maximum medical recovery is; you may be permanently disabled or you may be expected to fully recover after a certain amount of months with proper care. Once you have gotten the treatment you need to get an understanding of your expected maximum medical recovery, your Florida personal injury lawyers will be better prepared to fight for your rights to justice.
One huge thing we need you to avoid doing in order to have a successful claim is talking to the insurance company that represents the person who caused your harm. The insurance company tries to get victims to incriminate themselves so that their cases can be thrown away or reduced in value. You need to refuse to give them a statement of any kind and allow your lawyer to take over communication with them.
Why Hiring Personal Injury Lawyers is a Good Decision
Odds are you have never had to be involved in a personal injury claim before, so you might not know the first thing about what makes a case successful. It is not something you as an injured victim are expected to have to know.
These cases are complicated and involve a lot of investigation and litigation. You already have so much on your plate like figuring out how to cope with your injuries or possibly figuring out disability or unemployment if your injuries are preventing you from returning to work. The last thing you want to have to do is have to figure out how to litigate a personal injury case.
That is why having Florida personal injury lawyers take over your claim for you and do the hard parts is going to be good for you. You do not have to stress about how to manage a claim and get fair results. You turn it over to your lawyers and go back to getting your life sorted out.
It is important that you hire the right personal injury lawyer, however. You deserve to have a lawyer who cares deeply about the success of your case. At Serrano Law, we work with injured victims because they deserve to get justice and we want to help our community get fair results.
Do not just go with the lawyer who did the closing on your house or helped your friend get divorced. Hire the lawyer who has specialized experience in your particular case of personal injury.
Our Florida personal injury lawyers handle the following types of cases:
- Truck accidents
- Car accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Slip and falls
- Bus accidents
- Boating accidents
- Traumatic brain injury
Call us right away for a free consultation to get started.
What Factors into a Compensation Award?
When you seek justice for a personal injury, you are seeking it in the form of compensation from the insurance company. There are two types of damages that they cover: economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic damages are things such as your medical bills, wages lost from time missed at work, and medication costs. These are typically easy to calculate damages.
The damages that are not easy to put a figure on are your non-economic damages which include your pain and suffering, loss of quality of life, and emotional damages.
Generally speaking, the more this injury has cost you in dollars and in your physical, mental, and emotional health, the more the claim will be valued.
Recovering For Emotional Damages
A potential client came to us recently because she had a huge amount of anxiety after her car accident and asked if she could recover for emotional damages related to that accident. That answer is yes, absolutely— you can recover emotional damages. If you have a permanent injury as a result of your car accident, you are entitled to past and future pain and suffering, which includes damages for anxiety, mental anguish, and all kinds of other emotional damages.
If you have questions about your emotional damages or anything else related to filing a lawsuit, please give us a call today.
Choosing The Right Personal Injury Attorney
We had a client in Hillsborough County recently that asked a common question: How do you decide on an attorney? There are so many options out there. Who should you choose as your lawyer? To me, the number one thing is communication. The client has to trust their lawyer, so you definitely want to be able to speak with your lawyer.
If you go in for a consultation, you want to have an opportunity to speak with a lawyer and ask them about the case. Every case is different. Every case has its own elements that have to be proven. Some parts of your case may be different from someone else’s, and you’re not going to figure that out without good communication with your lawyer. You want to be able to talk with them and ask them questions, you want those questions to be answered, and you want to know that they’re on your side. That’s how you develop a trust relationship.
We’d love to help you with your personal injury case. We offer free consultations. Give us a call.
Personal Injury Settlement Timeline
We got a call from a client recently in the Tampa area and they asked how long it takes to settle a personal injury case. They had already been working with the adjuster. The answer to that is patience is a virtue. Some cases can last three or four months, depending on the claim, and some cases can last three years. It doesn’t mean that the case that’s three years old is any worse or better than the case that lasted for three months. Every case is different, and a lot of it depends on what the insurance companies are offering.
The benefit of hiring a trial lawyer is that we are able to evaluate the case in terms of what it would look like in front of a jury. Many times, insurance companies do not offer you maximum value. In order to get maximum value, sometimes you have to file a lawsuit. The end stage from the lawsuit to the end is the trial. Every case is different.
Medical treatment is dependent on the severity of the injury. The client that called in Tampa had to have surgery, so his case had already been a year out. Every case is different. We’d love to help you with your case. We offer free consultations. Give us a call.
Pre-existing Conditions in a Personal Injury Case
Recently, a potential client called wondering if he had a case because he had been injured in a car accident but had a preexisting condition in his lower back. The answer that we gave him was, absolutely, you can still recover if you have a preexisting condition. You are allowed to recover for an aggravation or an exacerbation of your preexisting injury. It helps to get in touch with a lawyer who has dealt with complicated cases involving preexisting injuries. In fact, that is probably one of the most important considerations if you do have a preexisting injury. Hire a lawyer who knows what they’re doing on this issue.
If you have any questions about filing a lawsuit or how your preexisting condition might affect your case, please give us a call anytime.
Minimum Amount Medical Bills Needed For a Personal Injury Case
Recently, a potential client called and asked if there was a minimum amount of medical bills that they needed to file a lawsuit. The answer to that is both yes and no. In Florida there’s a no-fault law, which essentially makes you self-insured up to $10,000. If your medical bills are under $10,000, those damages will cover it. Luckily, your medical bills are not the only part of your claim. If you have a permanent injury, you’re also entitled to past and future pain and suffering.
If you have any questions about how many medical bills you need or anything else regarding filing a lawsuit, please give us a call.
Avoiding Trial For Your Personal Injury Case
After negotiations failed in one of our cases, a client asked if there was a way that she could avoid going to trial. Yes, there is. No client wants to go to a trial, but there are plenty of opportunities to settle your case. If you hire a trial lawyer, the insurance company is going to know you mean business, which means that it’s more likely that your case will settle without a trial.
If you have questions about trials or the litigation process, please give us a call.
Initial Offer For a Personal Injury Case
We had a client in Tampa that hadn’t hired a lawyer yet and was dealing directly with the insurance company. This is common and happens all the time. The client asked us if they should take the first settlement offer. The answer, inevitably, is usually no, unless the insurance carrier is offering the policy limits, and even then you should have it evaluated by a trial attorney. The reason is that insurance companies only take into account what the bills are. That’s the easiest part of your case. Anybody can add up their medical bills that were related to the accident.
The real value of hiring a trial lawyer is the evaluation of the other elements of the claim, which include the future medical bills you’re reasonably certain to incur, items like pain and suffering, which nobody knows the exact value of. Before you settle your case, it is of extreme benefit to hire a trial attorney who is able to evaluate your case and let you know how good that settlement offer is from the insurance company.
We would love to help you out with a personal injury case. If you have any questions, give us a call.
Expert Witnesses in a Personal Injury Case
We had a case that went to trial recently and the client asked a great question. It was a case in Hillsborough County in Tampa, and the client asked, “Why do we have to hire these expert witnesses? What is the role of an expert witness?”
There are so many different types of expert witnesses. In the context of a personal injury case, it usually means a medical expert, but there are also experts that deal with the forces of a collision, as well as biomechanical experts and human factor experts. For trial lawyers, the role of the right, qualified expert is they can assist the jury in reaching a decision. If you have herniated discs in your neck, you can talk about your pain all day, but the expert witness – a radiologist, for example – would come to trial and talk about why he or she believes that that herniated disc was caused by the accident.
It’s a tough game, and insurance companies will hire their own experts, so, many times, trials become a battle of experts. If you hire the right trial attorneys, they’ll know what experts need to be hired that will assist you in getting the maximum value in your case. Give us a call. We would love to give you a consultation and talk to you a little more about personal injury cases.
Liability in a Personal Injury Case
A potential client called recently wondering who was going to pay for her medical bills as a result of the car accident she was involved in. The first person that’s going to start paying your medical bills is your own car insurance. You have what’s called personal injury protection coverage that will cover up to $10,000 in medical bills. After that, the insurance carrier for the person that hit you will end up covering your damages, if you’re injured and need medical care as a result of an accident.
If you need help navigating that process or figuring out who to get in touch with to recover for your medical bills, please give us a call. we can point you in the right direction.
Personal Injury Case Going to Trial
We got a call from one of our clients in Wesley Chapel recently who asked whether or not we thought their case would go to trial. We’d had the case for a couple of months. That’s a very hard question and, really, you can’t answer that right away. You may ask, “Then why do we need a trial lawyer?” Well, because a trial lawyer can evaluate the case as if the case is going to be presented in a trial setting.
Quite frankly, most cases do not end up in trial, though a small percentage do. When you have the benefit and the backing of a trial lawyer, however, the insurance companies look at that and realize that these attorneys are going to try to get the maximum value for their client.
I’d love to help you out with your case, and I’d love to evaluate it. We offer free evaluations for personal injury claims. Give us a call.
Call Our Florida Personal Injury Lawyers Today for a Free Consultation
You deserve to get justice for your damages. Do not hesitate to reach out to our Florida personal injury lawyers as soon as possible. This is a difficult time for you but we can help you get through it every step of the way. Call today for a free consultation.
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