When you’ve been hurt on someone else’s property through their fault or negligence, it’s important that you establish someone else’s liability for the injury, or else you will not have much chance of winning in a personal injury case.
Some cases are relatively straightforward, while others are much more complicated, and require a good deal of evidence and testimony. Contact one of our personal injury lawyers in South Bend today for a free consultation.
Here are a number of questions you’ll need to tackle with a personal injury lawyer before taking the case to court.
1.Why were you on the premises? If you were trespassing, for example, and there was signage telling you that the area was unsafe, there may be some difficulty in getting that case to win. If you were injured while participating in a recreational sports league, it will have to be established that you weren’t just injured because of the inherent danger of the sport. (It’s very unlikely that you’ll be allowed to participate in a sport without signing a waiver of liability, though not all injuries are strictly covered by these waivers.)
2.Who was on the scene when you were injured? Witnesses can be very helpful for establishing that the accident occurred while you weren’t doing anything particularly unsafe. If only the property owner (the plaintiff) was on site, it may be difficult to get corroboratory testimony out of them which may hurt their case.
3.Has anyone else been hurt in the same way, on the same property? If there is a pattern of negligence on the property, that could be helpful to your case.
4.Was the property owner breaking the law? If the safety of the site was not up to standards put in place by local, state, and federal governments for that type of facility, it’s worth knowing. When your lawyer is going through these (or similar) questions with you, he’ll expect you to be as specific as possible, and he’ll want to know all of the particulars of the case.
Often, there are details which you yourself may not think are important, but due to his experience with similar cases, he may be deeply interested in.
