Hillsborough Product Liability Lawyer

Common Product Liability Claim Mistakes

There are numerous ways you can accidentally lower the value of your product liability claim. Read over the most common errors below to help you avoid making the same mistakes.

Not Getting a Medical Exam After the Accident

Don’t make the mistake of minimizing the accident or the potential injury it may have inflicted on you. Let a medial professional examine you, so any injuries you may be unaware of are treated and put on record.

It’s important to remember that you may be feeling the effects of adrenaline during the first 18 hours or so after the accident. These effects include temporarily enhanced energy and strength, as well as a lowered ability to feel pain.

This response was probably helpful 12,000 years ago when early man was far more likely to need to run from large, hungry predators. These days, however, it often just gets in the way of seeking medical attention when we should.

However you may feel after an accident, it’s best to protect your health by going to the emergency room or doctor’s office as soon as possible. In addition to protecting your health, doing so will create a record of your injuries that will support your product liability claim.

Without this proof, the product manufacturer’s insurance company can challenge your claim by questioning when you were actually injured and how. Locking in the timeline of your injuries with a medical record will make it difficult for the insurance company to challenge. And the closer your medical visit is to the time of the accident, the stronger your evidence will be of when and how you were injured.

Not Following Your Treatment Plan

When you leave the doctor’s office or emergency room, your doctor will provide you with notes on how you can help your own recovery moving forward. This may take the form of physical therapy appointments. Or, you may be instructed to take a medication according to schedule until it is completed. This is especially true of you are prescribed an antibiotic, which may be rendered ineffective if you don’t follow instructions.

There are numerous forms a treatment plan can take. The important thing is that you adhere to yours. It will not only help you recover as efficiently as possible, but also keep the insurance company from attempting to devalue your claim.

If you don’t respect your treatment plan, the insurance company can blame you if you have difficulty recovering, instead of taking responsibility for the severity of your injuries. The less responsibility they bear for your circumstances, the less they need to pay you in compensation.

To protect your claim, make sure that you not only keep your treatment appointments and take your medications, but avoid strenuous activities you have been told to avoid until you’ve recovered.

Allowing the Insurance Company to Record Your Statement

It’s standard practice for the insurance company to call you after the accident and ask for a recorded statement. They may imply that this is necessary to process your claim as quickly as possible. What they don’t tell you is that the only party who benefits from agreeing to speak to them is the insurance company.

If the insurance adjuster is lucky and you assume you must speak to them, they will record your account of events, hoping to record you saying something that will enable them to devalue your claim.

If your claim is for electrical burns from a power tool, for instance, you may find yourself facing questions about whether your home’s wiring is up to code. This is just one example of the potential difficulties that can arise when you speak to the insurance company.

Don’t leave yourself vulnerable to having your claim devalued. Let your Hillsborough product liability lawyer handle communications with the insurance company.

Not to Hiring an Attorney as Soon as Possible

There are a number of reasons a person may fail to prioritize hiring a lawyer for their product liability claim. Waiting too long to look for a lawyer, however, is a mistake that can ruin your claim.

Some people wait because they are dealing with the immediate trauma of being injured. This is understandable, but it’s important to at least be mindful that you’ll need to look for someone to help you with a claim as soon as you are up to making the call.

Serrano Law understands that you’re dealing with a very difficult time, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. If you need answers but are not yet out of the hospital, Mike Serrano will come to you.

People sometimes wait to look for a lawyer because they are using the state’s statute of limitations as their deadline. This is a mistake because long before you run out of time to file, you’re going to run out of evidence to collect.

Accident scenes get cleaned up and evidence is sometimes lost. Witnesses change contact information. As time goes by, they are also likely to forget details about what they. Don’t help the insurance company by preventing your attorney from getting an early start on the investigation of your accident. Call as soon as you can.

A third reason a person may wait to call a lawyer is they hope to handle their claim themselves, believing it will save them money.

This is a mistake. Without an attorney, you don’t have the legal leverage to get the insurance company’s attention. They are well aware that if you fail to negotiate a fair settlement, you aren’t likely to win a case against their lawyers in the courtroom.

The more likely scenario is that they delay and deny your claim until you either give up and go away or you accept the first meager settlement they offer. If they wear you down enough, you are likely to worry that the first offer is the only offer you’ll get, causing you to agree. At this point, it’s likely you’ll just want to be done with the struggle and walk away with something.

A lawyer will know how insurance companies operate and won’t fall prey to their tactics. A lawyer will also have the experience and objectivity to know when an offer is worth accepting and when it’s better to turn it down. A lawyer can also take your claim into the courtroom if the insurance company refuses to agree to a reasonable settlement.

Finally, an attorney will also know how to assess your damages accurately so you don’t “leave money on the table” when negotiating a settlement.

If you’re worried about the expense of hiring a lawyer, consider that, statistically, people with experienced attorneys are awarded many times more than those who handle their own claims.

Choosing an Attorney Who’s Not a Good Fit for Your Claim

When you do hire a lawyer, it’s crucial to make sure you hire a personal injury trial attorney with experience handling product liability claims.

As with doctors, lawyers specialize in a variety of practice areas. Make sure the lawyer you hire spends the majority of his or her time working in personal injury. In addition, that person should be a trial lawyer. While it’s true many cases are resolved via settlement, some need to go before a jury to get you the compensation you deserve. If your case is one of these, you need to have a lawyer who’s up to the task.

Give your product liability claim the best shot at success by hiring a personal injury trial lawyer with a record of success in product liability.

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Call Our Hillsborough Product Liability Lawyer Today

We hope this information has given you a good overview of your product liability claim. Since no two cases are exactly alike, give our Hillsborough product liability lawyer a call as soon as you can to schedule your free legal consultation. Don’t wait until your claim has been negatively impacted by the passage of time. Get started right away.