If you’ve suffered a personal injury in Cincinnati, you are likely wondering how much your case is worth. Before you can recover compensation, you will need to prove that the defendant is liable for your injuries. Successful plaintiffs are entitled to damages, or monetary compensation, for the physical, economic, and emotional harm you have suffered.
Every case is unique. Speaking to an experienced lawyer is the best way to understand what your claim might be worth. At Jones Kahan Law, LLC, we have extensive personal injury experience. We’ve helped many clients recover damage awards. After reviewing the facts of your case, we can give you an idea of how much your case is worth. Contact us today to schedule your initial consultation at our law firm.
When determining how much your personal injury claim is worth, we will examine the defendant’s liability. Liability refers to someone’s legally recognized fault and financial responsibility for the accident that caused your injuries. The person who is at fault for the accident or event that caused your injuries is liable for your injuries.
When another person is 100 percent at fault for your injuries, your claim will be stronger, and the likelihood of you recovering damages will increase. In many cases, the injured party is also at fault for the accident.
In Ohio car accidents, for example, both drivers might have been at fault. Perhaps one driver drove while under the influence of alcohol while the other driver was distracted by the radio station. Courts will look at the evidence to assign a percentage of fault to the plaintiff and the defendant.
Ohio recognizes the legal doctrine of comparative negligence. As a personal injury victim, you can still recover compensation as long as you were 50 percent or less at fault for your personal injuries. If a court finds that you were 51 percent or more at fault for your injuries, you will not be able to recover any compensation.
When a personal injury victim was partially at-fault for the accident, Ohio courts will reduce the award of damages by the percentage of the injured person’s fault. When a plaintiff is 40 percent at fault, the court will reduce his or her damages award by 40 percent. If the jury awarded you $100,000 but found you to be 40 percent liable, you’d recover $60,000 in damages.
You will only be able to recover damages for your injuries if you can prove the element of causation. When we evaluate a potential personal injury case to determine how much it’s worth, we consider whether or not we can prove that the defendant caused your injuries. You will need to prove that the defendant is liable because his or her negligent actions or inaction caused your injuries.
Defendants will poke holes in your case and try to claim that another problem or event caused your injuries, not the defendant. They might claim that you shouldn’t recover damages because your injuries were pre-existing, or existed before the accident took place. Proving causation is a necessary step to recovering damages in your Cincinnati personal injury lawsuit.
Ohio personal injury laws seek to put the injured party into the same condition or place he or she was before the accident happened. You will need to prove that you suffered a physical injury to recover compensation for your accident. Typically, the more severe the injuries suffered by the plaintiff, the larger the amount of compensation a court will award.
When someone else’s negligence caused your injuries and resulting economic and emotional harm, you have the right to seek compensation. Typically, the more serious your injuries, the more money juries are willing to award to plaintiffs. For example, if a negligent driver caused the car accident that resulted in your paralysis, the negligent driver will never be able to fix your paralysis and make you walk again. The driver can give you compensation for your injuries, pain, and suffering, and economic losses caused by your paralysis, however.
For many of our clients, recovering compensation is their one shot at surviving with their injuries financially. When we sit down with our clients, we evaluate all of their financial, emotional, and physical losses so we can accurately determine the amount of the damage award we seek.
Injured parties should keep records of all of the expenses associated with their injuries. It can be easy to forget small costs related to your injury, but over a period of time, these small expenses add up. Remember, you are seeking compensation for past economic harm as well as future financial harm. The following are some of the questions our attorneys ask to help us determine how much compensation to seek from the defendant:
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