After suffering injuries in an accident, you may be concerned that you will not be able to pay your hospital bills or other expenses. The injuries may be catastrophic, altering your life permanently and placing a significant burden on your family members. It can be crucial to take legal action to pursue compensation to help you cover the costs and put your life back together. If you have been injured in a car accident, a slip and fall, or another type of accident in South Florida, you should consult the Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers at the Gainza Law Group. We understand how to build a persuasive claim and present it to insurers, a judge, or a jury, maximizing the compensation that you are awarded.
Usually, to recover damages in a personal injury lawsuit, you will need to establish negligence by a preponderance of the evidence. This means that it is more likely than not that the defendant failed to take the appropriate precautions to account for the safety of those around them. The duty depends on the circumstances. For example, if the driver of another car fails to yield at an intersection at which you have the right of way, and this driver T-bones your car, this is likely to be considered negligence.
Meanwhile, interstate truck drivers have specific duties under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulations, and a failure to abide by the FMCSA regulations is strong evidence of negligence. If they overload their truck or stay behind the wheel for more hours than permitted by regulations, a personal injury attorney at our Fort Lauderdale firm can help a truck accident victim hold them liable. The trucking company also may be held liable in many cases, either directly or through its employment relationship with the driver.
Some types of personal injury cases require proving more specific elements. For example, if you are bringing a premises liability lawsuit after a slip and fall accident, you will need to prove that the property owner knew or should have known about the dangerous condition that caused your injuries.
A different standard of care applies in medical malpractice lawsuits. If you are trying to recover damages for medical malpractice, your Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney will need to show by a preponderance of the evidence that a professional standard of care was required, the defendant health care provider committed a breach of the professional standard of care, and you suffered injuries as a result. The professional standard of care is the set of medical practices and standards that is accepted by the medical community when faced with certain circumstances. The professional standard of care may vary depending on the individual characteristics of the patient. For example, a primary care doctor might conduct a different differential diagnosis when diagnosing and treating a 65-year-old male than when seeing a 13-year-old girl.
If you are injured on the job, you are likely entitled to workers’ compensation benefits through your employer. In addition, you may have a third-party claim against another party whose negligence caused your injuries. For example, if a subcontractor that was not your employer was responsible for putting in place protection related to electricity hazards on a construction site, but it failed to do so, you may be able to seek compensation from that subcontractor directly for electrocution-related injuries.
If your loved one died in a tragically preventable accident, you may have legal options. Florida Statutes section 768.19 provides that you can bring a wrongful death action when someone’s death is caused by the negligence, wrongful act, breach of contract, or default of another person or entity. The decedent’s estate can sue in a Florida court, seeking a legal remedy for the death and any losses arising from it.
If you can establish liability, you may be able to recover many forms of damages. These may cover both economic and noneconomic losses, such as wage loss, medical bills, pain and suffering, mental anguish, and property damage.
If you suffer serious injuries in an accident in Fort Lauderdale or elsewhere in Florida, the Gainza Law Group is here to fight for your rights. We provide aggressive legal representation to victims and their families in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach Counties, as well as other areas of the state. For instance, we represent people in the areas around Pompano Beach, Miami, Hialeah, West Palm Beach, Coral Springs, Hollywood, Lauderhill, Miramar, Pembroke Pines, Plantation, Sunrise, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Cape Coral, Tampa, Clearwater, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee, Orlando, Jacksonville, and Daytona Beach. Call us at (954) 463-1210 or use our online form to arrange a free case review and find out more about your options.