What is a claim for permanent injury and how can I help a jury or insurance company to understand what I have been through because of the accident?

With the loss of a limb, broken bones, serious infection, traumatic brain injuries, and other significant life-altering injuries, thoughtful concern is appropriate to fully measure how those injuries are likely to change a person’s life.

Often, it is necessary to obtain the benefit of keenly attentive medical oversight to outline the true extent of the injury, the necessity and frequency of continuous medical care.

This often invites the need for life care planning and vocational rehabilitation to show how an injury changes almost every aspect of a person’s life, including their many social, work, and family interactions.

This is where a personal injury claim gets very personal. Most people vary in how they experience pain. Some stoic individuals can endure significant suffering. Others have extremely low pain tolerance and require extended periods of recovery and careful management with strong medications, which can be addictive and invite a whole host of other problems that require care and management.

The answer to this question varies from case to case. Influencing factors include: Facts of the claim Location of accident Extent of personal injury Damages to property Applicable law With so many variables at play, it is hard to say with certainty a specific dollar amount that could be awarded. Through years of experience, we at CCR have learned how to evaluate the factors of each potential claim. Let us evaluate your claim free of charge.

You may not. To non-lawyers, this simple question can be deceivingly complicated in surprising and unfamiliar ways. It remains an extremely important issue, though, because if the necessary parties are not correctly named in the lawsuit, the claim may be severely limited, devalued, or possibly voided altogether. Failure to file suit against the correct person or corporation puts any judgment obtained at risk of being uncollectible. There are a few reasons for this; for example, you may obtain a judgment against one not legally bound to pay it. You also risk losing the right to file against the correct person or corporation if you fail to fix the mistake in time and name the proper party within the time allowed within the statute of limitations period.

In Arkansas, a “party” to the lawsuit includes the persons and legal entities identified directly with causing the harm, but responsibility for the harms and losses may extend much further. True parties to the lawsuit may also need to include any persons, corporations, or class of persons and corporations having legal responsibility to answer for the negligence and the damages incurred because of it. Attorneys take measure of many factors when determining the right person or corporation to name in a personal injury, medical negligence, or wrongful death lawsuit (or any suit for that matter). Legal principles such as respondeat superior, agency, and joint enterprise are just some of the legal liability principles used by attorneys to describe the consequences of one person or corporation’s relationship to another in a way that compels legal accountability. These legal principles likely govern how much insurance money is available to the injured victim(s).

If you or someone you know is about to file a lawsuit and you are unsure of how any of these legal principles might affect the proper party to name in your lawsuit, give us a call. We regularly deal with these issues, and we know how to determine the full extent of legal accountability available to innocent victims of negligence.