When someone is injured in an accident in New Jersey, they have the right to seek compensation. Call our West Long Branch Law Office today and protect your future.
Accidents happen, and bodies are fragile. When someone is injured in an accident in New Jersey, and another party caused the accident, they have the right to seek compensation for medical expenses, income lost, out-of-pocket expenses related to the injury, and even pain and suffering. Recuperating the accident’s financial costs is facilitated by a personal injury claim and often handled by a personal injury lawyer. Having a personal injury lawyer if you have been injured in an accident, and it wasn’t your fault; because it allows you to focus on your healing and recovery and leave the ins and outs of the personal injury lawsuit to an experienced professional. What if the accident was caused by someone else, yet you played a role in the injury? Read on to learn more about whether you can seek compensation for accident injury expenses if you are partially responsible for the injury.
First things first: What Is a Personal Injury Lawsuit?
There are many reasons that a personal injury lawsuit may be filed. Examples include a slip-and-fall accident, a car accident involving negligence by a motorist, medical malpractice, animal bites, and even defamation. In each of these cases, the accident and subsequent injury are caused by another party, who becomes the defendant in the personal injury lawsuit. The New Jersey Civil Division tries personal injury cases.
When someone seeks damages due to an accident, this attempt to recuperate expenses by appearing before the New Jersey Civil Division covers the following:
- medical expenses – Any medical bill that comes as a result of the accident falls under this category. Any expense – past, present, or future – related to the accident falls under this umbrella. When an injury is ongoing, and the expenses for treating it are likely to be ongoing, a personal injury lawsuit will estimate all treatment costs. This is one reason it is imperative to have a skilled personal injury lawyer in your corner to ensure that you recuperate the full extent of damages, carefully considering even the distant future.
- Lost income – There is a likelihood that you will miss work if you are injured in an accident. As the medical expenses, a personal injury lawsuit considers both incomes that have been lost to date due to the injury and income that is estimated to be lost in the future in service of the full recovery.
- Out-of-pocket costs – The expenses one pays to a doctor or hospital are not the only costs required for recovery. Many out-of-pocket costs are also recuperable in a personal injury case, including all items and services that support the process of living with and recovering from injury after an accident.
- Pain and suffering – Psychological costs of an accident, too, can be high, and a personal injury lawsuit considers these. The lawsuit estimates the monetary value of the injury’s psychological cost on a victim and includes professional psychological support the victim is seeking.
What If I Contributed to the Injury?
In New Jersey, personal injury lawsuits are addressed based on modified comparative negligence. This means that the amount of financial damages that a plaintiff can recover is directly tied to the percentage of culpability that person had in causing the accident. If the defendant can prove that the victim was performing some illegal action that partially, or even completely, led to the accident, the judge or jury will determine what percentage of culpability that party had and adjust the awarded damages based on the figure. If it is found that the victim was more than 50 percent responsible for the accident, they forfeit the right to recover damages.
For example, if a plaintiff is seeking $40,000 to cover expenses caused by an automobile accident, but they were found to be 25 percent responsible for causing the accident, they will be awarded $30,000 in damages. Because modified comparative negligence consideration can mean a difference of thousands of dollars of damages recovered by the victim, it is imperative to have a skilled personal injury attorney on your side.
Contact our Monmouth County Personal Injury Claims Seasoned Team
At Chamlin, Uliano & Walsh, our skilled team of personal injury attorneys represents clients across West Long Branch, Red Bank, Colts Neck, Asbury Park, and across Monmouth County in all matters of personal injury law.
Our unique approach ensures that our clients can focus on their own physical and psychological recovery and get on with a healthy life as soon as possible.
To schedule a consultation with a team member today, please contact us online or by phone at 732-440-3950.