Brockton Personal Injury Lawyers

A Personal Injury Attorney in Brockton Ready to Help You

An experienced personal injury attorney brings knowledge and talent to the table to help you fully recover your personal injury damages. A Brockton attorney will understand the facts and circumstances of your case and will be familiar with local insurance company lawyers as well. This knowledge and local experience will help to achieve the best possible result for you. 

Essentially, a personal injury occurs when a person’s body, mind, or emotions are injured and that injury results from the negligence, gross negligence, recklessness, or intentional misconduct of another person. 

What Kinds of Accidents Cause Personal Injuries?

Personal injury cases almost always involve negligence. Negligence is a claim that:

• another party had a duty of care to you, 
• that party failed to meet or breached that standard of care, 
• as a result of or caused by that breach, 
• you suffered an injury which can be compensated by payment of money damages to you. 

Gross negligence, which Massachusetts recognizes as a separate level of negligence, involves a higher level of breach, for example, conduct which approaches recklessness. Massachusetts is now the only state that does not cap punitive damages based on gross negligence. 

If the injury was intentional or resulted from reckless disregard of the danger, a different set of laws and higher ability to recover applies. An experienced personal injury lawyer can help you determine which rule applies to your case. 

• Car accidents – Massachusetts requires you to report any collision that caused injury, death, or more than $1,000 worth of damage within five days of the accident, even if there were police at the scene of the accident.

• Truck accidents – Truck accidents are different because they cause higher rates of injury and death. 

• Motorcycle accidents – Motorcycle cases have image problems with juries, so you will want to be sure to have experienced counsel to help you avoid the pitfalls.

• Bicycle accidents – Bike accidents present severe injuries because of the sheer physics involved in a large car hitting a small bike. 

• Pedestrian accidents – Again, the physics here favors the driver. Be sure to obtain experienced legal advice if you are hit by a car while walking on the street. 

• Premises liability accidents – Premises liability cases in Massachusetts feature two kinds of people:  trespassers and persons who are legally on the property or legal entrants. A legal entrant receives much more protection under Massachusetts law than a trespasser. A property owner has a duty of reasonable care for legal entrants and must provide for the safety of legal entrants from reasonably foreseeable events or conditions. The claimant must prove by a preponderance of the evidence (a more likely than not standard) that the defendant violated a duty of reasonable care based on community standards of acceptable behavior. 

• Slip and fall accidents – Slip and fall accidents are, essentially, a particular kind of premises liability case. If you fall on another’s property, be sure to report the fall. Document as much as you can of the incident and the scene.

• Hit and run accidents – A hit and run accident in Massachusetts is frustrating for the victim and may have criminal consequences for the individual who left the scene.   

• Dog bites – Massachusetts is a strict liability state for dog bites. The dog owner will always be liable for injuries caused by the owner’s dog unless the injured party was a trespasser or was tormenting the animal. Minors under the age of seven are presumed by law not to be trespassers or tormenting the animal. 

• Negligent security – Negligent security is a type of premises liability case in which an individual is injured by a third party on the premises of another. The case presumes that the property owner failed to take reasonable steps to protect lawful visitors from foreseeable risks. 

• Medical malpractice – Massachusetts requires that you file your claim within three years from the time you become aware of your injury. Non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, are capped at $500,000 unless there is a permanent loss of function or substantial disfigurement. If some of the damages are covered by another source, Massachusetts law reduces recovery by that amount. MedMal is complicated. You should consult an experienced medical malpractice attorney if you think you may have a case. 

• Workplace accidents – Accidents in the workplace are different – and complicated - because they are covered most likely under Workers Compensation rules rather than simple negligence. The services of an experienced attorney can help you navigate these complexities more easily. 

• Accidents involving defective consumer products – Massachusetts recognizes three kinds of product liability claims:  manufacturing defects, design defects, and failure to warn defects. Under the state’s implied warranty of merchantability, an owner or manufacturer can be held liable for damages caused by a defective product.  Defendants can include manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, with any party in the distribution chain of a product possibly held liable. Again, working with experienced counsel will help you to deal with the subtleties of consumer products litigation.

 

How Much is My Claim Worth?

The value of personal injury claims can vary significantly and is based on several factors. An experienced personal injury lawyer understands those factors and can help you determine whether you have a case that is likely to succeed in recovering damages, and how much you may potentially recover. 

Medical Expenses - Medical expenses include doctor’s bills, prescriptions, other medications, hospitalization, surgical expenses, and similar costs. These are generally recoverable to the total amount of the expenditure.

Lost Income - Lost income due to a car accident is covered under the Personal Injury Protection portion of your insurance policy; a separate claim must be filed for that. In any other personal injury case, the lost wages will be recovered as part of the overall claim. Be sure, however, to keep accurate records to demonstrate how much was actually lost.

Physical and Emotional Pain and Suffering - Again, car accidents present a unique case here. To present a claim for pain and suffering in a Massachusetts car accident, you must first be able to demonstrate at least $2,000 in reasonable and necessary medical expenses as a result of the accident. Once this monetary threshold is met, a personal injury claimant is entitled to recover their out of pocket losses as well as compensation for pain and suffering caused by the accident. To maximize the amount recovered, it is always advisable to consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer.  

Property Damage – If your property was damaged due to another’s negligence, the value of the property is also something that is generally recoverable in a personal injury claim.  In a motor vehicle accident case this may include not only the damage to an automobile, but also the damage caused to any personal property inside of the automobile.   A trained and experienced personal injury lawyer can help to make sure you recover for everything you are entitled to.

 

How Long Do I Have to File a Claim?

Massachusetts provides for a three-year limitation on the filing of a personal injury lawsuit. Missing this deadline will cause your case to be dismissed immediately. There are some exceptions to this deadline that prevent your case from being dismissed. The exceptions include:

• Lack of competency - either as a minor or a person declared incompetent. The entire three years will be available beginning at the age of majority (18) or when the person has been declared competent. 
• Fraudulent concealment - If the person who caused the accident actively conceals the potential liability or option for filing a suit, the statute is tolled (that is, does not start running) until the concealment ends.

A worker’s compensation claim is slightly different. It has different rules than ordinary personal injury cases because of the unique structure of Worker’s Compensation. Without going into a lot of detail about that, you should be aware that you have four years from the time of the injury or the death of an employee.

Although you may think one of these exceptions might apply to your case, it is better to seek legal counsel as soon as possible. Memories fade, evidence can be misplaced or disappear, and witnesses can move or pass away. Unnecessary delays can, and often do, cause significant complications in what would otherwise be fairly simple and straightforward cases. An experienced personal injury lawyer can collect necessary evidence and secure important witness statements that may later be needed for your case, and use his experience to help to navigate you through the process to a successful result.  

 

What if You Are Partially at Fault?

Massachusetts is a “comparative fault” state for personal injury claims. In other words, if you share in the fault for the injury, your damages will be reduced by the same percentage as the amount of fault you are deemed to share. In other words, if the court finds you were 25% at fault for an injury in which you suffered $100,000 in damages, your award would be reduced to $75,000. However, if you are found to be more than 50% at fault then you are not entitled to recover any damages for your injuries at all. It may be difficult for you to be sufficiently impartial to estimate your level of fault in an accident. A knowledgeable personal injury lawyer can help you determine how this doctrine will affect your case. 

 

Do You Need a Brockton Personal Injury Lawyer?

Not only can an experienced personal injury lawyer provide you with a fairly good estimation of the value of your case, but he or she will also be familiar with the negotiating techniques of local insurance companies. Remember, the insurance company’s lawyer does not work for you. That lawyer’s job is to get you to settle the case for the smallest amount they can convince you to accept. In other words, their primary goal is to save the insurance company money.  Therefore, you want adequate representation on your side to maximize your recovery.

Your attorney’s job is to get you a settlement that will make you whole. An experienced personal injury attorney will aim to ensure that you recover for all of the damages and injuries you suffered. This professional will know how to counter a lowball insurance company offer. Personal injury attorneys generally do not get paid unless your claim succeeds in recovering your damages. They generally recover a designated percentage of the recovery as their legal fee (usually 33 1/3%).  This gives them incentive to obtain the maximum possible payout for you, as the larger the payout is the larger their fee, and if no recovery is obtained for you then the lawyer gets paid nothing. An experienced personal injury lawyer will be exceptionally good at judging the potential value of a particular case and know how to get it.

 

Call Us Today to Speak with an Experienced Brockton Personal Injury Attorney

The Law Offices of Christopher Sullivan, P.C., offers you over 100 years of combined personal injury litigation experience. Since 2003, the firm has handled thousands of cases and recovered more than $25,000,000 for its clients. The firm has offices in Boston, Abington, and Brockton. They also provide virtual meetings and are willing to travel to your home or business when necessary.  They have experienced injury attorneys waiting to take your call.

Christopher Sullivan is an experienced personal injury lawyer who has concentrated his practice in personal injury law for more than two decades. Contact the Law Offices of Christopher Sullivan, P.C., to speak with Christopher or one of his talented colleagues today. They remain at the ready to help guide you through your personal injury claim.