Downey Personal Injury Lawyers

Relieve Your Suffering with Downey’s Leading Injury Lawyers

About 30,000 people are killed in car accidents yearly, and about three million are injured. The number one injury in all those accidents is whiplash. While most people have heard of it, few know anything more than it is a neck injury.

Whiplash occurs when the neck moves back and forth quickly and forcefully, typically in rear-end collisions. Most people with this type of soft tissue damage recover within a few weeks or months, but some have chronic injuries with long-term and expensive consequences.

Whiplash That Lasts

If you are diagnosed with whiplash after a car accident, you will likely experience the most common symptom, which is neck pain. You could also have headaches, a stiff neck, a loss of the range of motion in your neck, and numbness or tingling in your arms. Some whiplash sufferers experience:

• dizziness
• blurred vision
• ringing in the ears

If these symptoms aren’t bad enough, some people with whiplash experience trouble concentrating and memory problems. Imagine living with these symptoms for a few weeks or a few months. That would be good news to the estimated 25 percent of whiplash sufferers living with chronic pain from their injury.

Imagine being in a car accident, getting whiplash, and never getting better. These people need a lawyer to help them get compensation for their lifetime of pain and suffering.

How Lawyers Treat Whiplash

Lawyers don’t treat whiplash like a doctor does, but the treatment a good attorney offers does help ease a patient’s suffering. If a person’s injuries from a car accident are short-term, they can expect damages to cover medical expenses during their brief illness.

But what if those injuries cause health problems with an unknown and uncertain ending? How can a victim be compensated when the cost of their damages is unknown? They get the best legal representation available. A good lawyer will fight for what’s right, whatever amount is necessary to provide for the victim’s needs.

Compensation and Downey Car Accidents

Downey car accident lawyers provide people with serious injuries arising from automobile collisions’ vital assistance. About 800 people are injured to some degree in car accidents in and around Downey each year. In that number are also people who are killed in automobile accidents in and around Downey each and every year.

In the aftermath of a car accident in or around Downey, California, a person is likely in need of compensation in a number of areas. These areas of compensation include:

• medical bills
• pain and suffering
• emotional distress
• lost income
• permanent injury or disability

Making a case for an appropriate level of compensation requires a proper strategy and tenacity, a level of experience that is found in the efforts of Downey car accident lawyers.

In addition to current losses experienced by a person injured in car accidents, the need for compensation for future losses is very real. Making the case for future losses can be a complex matter. It is best accomplished through the help of attorneys well-versed in working on behalf of victims of a car accident.

Personal Injury Accident Lawsuits

Car accident lawsuits are complicated matters. In the absence of experienced Downey car accident lawyers, a lawsuit can very easily go off the rails. From the very beginning of a lawsuit, when it is commenced, the California Code of Civil Procedure requires certain milestones to be met. If these milestones are not met, a case can be dismissed.

Throughout the course of a personal injury lawsuit, the plaintiff must meet certain requirements, including deadlines and court appearances. Yet again, falling short regarding one or another of these milestones can have dire consequences for a lawsuit.

The laws on the books in the state of California require three elements to be satisfied to demonstrate that another driver is legally liable for damages in a car accident first.

• A demonstration must be had that a duty of care exists. That actually is quite simple in the case of a car accident. A person operating a motor vehicle on a public roadway has a duty of care. That duty is to operate the automobile in a reasonably safe manner.
• In order to prove negligence exists, a demonstration must be made of a breach of that duty of care. For example, if a driver speeds through an intersection, against a red light, that conduct would be deemed a breach of duty of care.
• Finally, the breach of the duty must be the proximate cause of the accident and injuries sustained by someone else. For example, if a pedestrian is walking lawfully across the intersection and is hit by the speeding driver going against the light, the accident and the injuries sustained would be proximately, or legally, caused by the conduct of the automobile driver. The accident and injuries would be the result of the breach of the duty of care owed by the motorist.

Damages You Can Recover For An Injury

As with other vehicle accident cases, we must prove liability and damages when fighting personal injury claims. Determining fault is not always a simple task even when you know the other party is to blame. Our Downey accident attorneys use all the firm’s resources to meet the burden of proof.

When it comes to damages, we look at those capable of exact calculation and the ones that are not. Damages capable of calculation are called special damages, and these include:

• medical bills
• lost earnings for the past, present, and future
• loss of earning capacity
• other financial losses

The other types of damages are pain and suffering, which don’t have precise guidelines for calculation.

Understanding Punitive Damages

Downey personal injury lawyers are vitally helpful in a lawsuit when the possibility for punitive damages exist. Indeed, in the absence of qualified legal counsel, garnering punitive damages likely would not be possible.

Punitive damages are extra compensation above and beyond what is paid for essentially injuries, damages, and losses. In addition, punitive damages are designed to provide a level of punishment for a person who causes an accident because of particularly reckless conduct.

For example, take the case of a store owner. The owner is aware of a dangerous protrusion out of a wall, a sharp object that previously injured and customer, and could be prepared and rectified simply and inexpensively. The owner does nothing. Someone else is injured. Punitive damages could be possible, and a capable personal injury attorney would make a strong case for them.

Why Get a Lawyer For Your Personal Injury Case

California has one of the US’s largest populations of motorcycles with over 80,000 bikes registered. It is not surprising that Californians love their bikes with the incredible riding opportunities that the region provides. Motorcycle crashes are every common, in fact, they make up about 14 percent of all accidents.

Cases involving motorcycle/bicycle accidents contain certain legal aspects that are not similar to other vehicle accidents. It is why handling a motorcycle accident case in Downey requires a professional with the relevant know-how. Motorcycle rules and laws are varied in different states, and that plays a significant role when filing a claim for compensation.

For example, you are supposed to take a separate driving test in California to get a license. Also, there are two types of licenses, the M1, which allows operation of any motorcycle, and M2, which permits you to ride any motorized bicycle, scooter, or moped.

For instance, if you had an M2 license and got involved in an accident while driving another type of bike, then there may be complications. A motorbike/ bicycle attorney understands the proper way of handling such a case. Motorbike accidents have some of the most catastrophic injuries, especially involving the head and spine.

A bike accident may leave you permanently paralyzed or with some physical deformities. Recovering compensation for such injuries is not only tedious but frustrating as well. It is even worse when you have dependents who are going to suffer the aftermath of such injuries.

Keep in mind that the state has some of the toughest motorcycle laws you will ever encounter anywhere in the U.S that include safety equipment, insurance, and licenses. For example, a rider can only use helmet speakers with only one earphone. Riding with speakers on is an aspect that influences the gravity of a claim. A lawyer would have to prove that you were within the laws when you were on helmet speakers.

El Dabe Ritter Trial Lawyers Can Help

El Dabe has a team of experienced car accident attorneys who understand the law regarding auto crashes and how injuries affect the outcome of settlements. Sometimes an injury does not show up immediately, and sometimes it worsens before it gets better.

With an injury like whiplash, the initial costs include a diagnosis, which provides for the doctor’s exam, X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans.

Treatment can include over-the-counter and prescription medicines, injections, and physical therapy. That’s just for the cases where whiplash clears up quickly. Our attorneys ensure these medical expenses are not a burden to our clients.

Client Compensation

We are even more aggressive in pursuing client compensation when Whiplash has a long-term outlook. When it’s chronic pain, it could be caused by damage to a facet joint or disc injury, or both. Since the pain is established, the auto accident victim will pay for medicine indefinitely.

Medicine will only treat the symptoms. Chronic whiplash will stay with the victim and could lead to other problems, such as anxiety or depression. Chronic whiplash sufferers are often treated with antidepressants.

It’s a long and difficult road for those who get whiplash from a car accident but don’t have to travel alone. We at El Dabe are here to help with expert legal counsel and aggressively pursue your rights and compensation.

Why You Need a Lawyer

If you have whiplash due to a car accident that lasts indefinitely, legal action may be the only way you get compensated for the years of pain and suffering in your future. What a lawyer understands, but you may not, is that there are usually time limits on filing lawsuits and documents to support the case.

Lawyers also understand California’s legal rules and regulations, how many potential damages are available for victims, and how to prove the liability of the person responsible for the accident.

Having the right lawyer on your side could be the difference between receiving complete compensation and getting a settlement. El Dabe’s Downey personal injury lawyers team is ready to take your case and fight for you. Call us to find out how we can help. Contact us at 213-985-1120.