How Do You Start a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Lafayette?

Accidental injuries may be inevitable in the city the size of Lafayette, where over 70,000 permanent residents rub shoulders each day, though you may be eligible to pursue personal injury litigation when somebody else is at fault. How do you start a personal injury lawsuit in Lafayette? Let Hensley Legal Group explain how to begin […]

October 18, 2024

Defendants Must Be Identified

Any valid Lafayette personal injury claim must allege two core elements: “negligence,” which is the failure to exercise care to avoid inflicting harm, and “damages,” which are the detrimental consequences or harm incurred. Essentially, if you sustain physical damages because of a defendant’s negligence, you could initiate a claim against that defendant to obtain financial damages.

However, your case may never get off the ground unless you can identify a viable defendant, and the sheer number of potential defendants could make this task daunting. In certain situations, multiple parties could share varying levels of legal liability simultaneously, for which they might share varying levels of fiscal liability, and you could be forever barred from being fully reimbursed if you neglect to take prompt action against all of them.

Damages Must Be Assessed

Furthermore, you may not be able to get what you are owed unless you can compellingly convey your damages. Maybe you have been injured before, but you probably haven’t appraised an injury in dollars and cents before, and it can be hard to know when an offer for your injuries is too low if you do not know what those injuries are actually worth.

To make matters worse, your current injuries may constitute a small fraction of your overall damages, since the symptoms of some injuries might emerge only gradually. Similarly, while some of your damages may be monetary in nature, like medical expenses and lost wages, others may not come with a price tag attached, like pain and suffering and psychological trauma, yet such non-monetary damages can sometimes prove to be more enduring.

If you don’t accurately assess the totality of your damages from an accident, be they short-term, long-term, monetary, or non-monetary, you could be entirely on your own when the bill final comes due.

Valid Claims Must Be Established

After you have located the defendants and determined what they have cost you, you must establish valid claims against each of them by sending formal notification in writing and alerting their insurance companies, who will generally be your chief sources of economic recovery.

Though a claim could provide a sufficient means of redress, some plaintiffs decide to file lawsuits as well, which might grant them greater protections and the opportunity to bring their cases before a judge or jury. But no matter what the future ultimately holds, any lawsuit that is not filed in a court with the power to issue a binding judgment could get dismissed, so it is vital to select the appropriate venue for your case.

How a Lafayette Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help

Once you have completed these steps, you will have officially started a personal injury lawsuit – though it is just a start. You will still have to construct the strongest case possible, then use it to secure compensation from the defendants’ insurance carriers, whether though a negotiated settlement or a verdict at trial. Either way, you could tip the odds in your favor by partnering with a seasoned Lafayette personal injury lawyer, preferably sooner rather than later.

An attorney will be better equipped to track down everyone who is responsible for your injuries. A skilled legal practitioner will also be better equipped to calculate the true value of your case and strive to equal or exceed that figure by assembling evidence of your losses and the insured’s guilt that even the most jaded insurance adjuster cannot refute. This is a key reason why personal injury claimants with lawyers receive 3.5 times more than claimants without them.

These types of cases are often resolved outside of the courtroom, though a Lafayette personal injury attorney will be critical if yours goes to trial, since plaintiffs who represent themselves in court lose about 96 percent of the time, whereas plaintiffs with representation are likelier to win. And if your lawyer can detail everything that has been taken from you, you might manage to acquire the funds you need to get back to normal.

Reach Out to Our Lafayette Personal Injury Attorneys

Hensley Legal Group has been standing up for the seriously injured for more than 25 years. If you have recently been hurt in the Lafayette area, reach out to our Lafayette personal injury attorneys to learn what they can do for you.

You can schedule a free consultation with a dedicated Lafayette personal injury lawyer by calling or texting us at (317) 472-3333, chatting with us online, or filling out our contact form today.