Personal injuries affect many Boca Raton residents every year. Understanding your legal rights when another person or entity negligently, recklessly, or intentionally caused that personal injury is important to your eventual financial recovery.

If you were injured in a car collision, construction accident, slip and fall, by a defective product, or in an intentional act of violence, you may be able to recover compensation for your medical bills, lost income, and pain and suffering. But this is only possible if you file in the appropriate amount of time indicated by Florida’s statute of limitations. To have the best chance of recovering sufficient economic and non-economic damages against a negligent party, victims should hire an experienced lawyer immediately after an accident in Boca Raton.

For more information about your legal right to recover for your harms from the party responsible for causing them, reach out to the seasoned Boca Raton personal injury lawyers at The Carrion Law Firm. Get a free initial case evaluation today when you call (954) 951-4828.

Types of Personal Injury in Boca Raton

Personal injury law encompasses a wide range of types of accidents. If you suffered injury and believe that another person or entity was responsible for causing it or should have prevented the accident from happening, you should reach out to a Boca Raton personal injury lawyer. Car accidents, construction accidents, premises liability accidents, product liability accidents, and intentional violence are some of the most common circumstances that lead to a personal injury lawsuit in Boca Raton. If you are unsure whether or not your recent accident qualifies you to file a personal injury claim, ask your Boca Raton attorney for clarification.

Car Accidents

Vehicular collisions are one of the main causes of negligent injury in the State of Florida, and also one of the main causes of personal injury suits. Injury victims can file a lawsuit to recover damages against a negligent driver whether they were another driver, a passenger, a bicyclist, or a pedestrian. If you were injured in another type of vehicle collision, like a motorcycle accident or a truck accident, you may also be able to file a personal injury lawsuit in Boca Raton.

Construction Accidents

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) most construction accidents involve one of four major hazards: electrocution, slip and falls, getting stuck in between objects, or being struck by falling objects. While construction accidents most often impact workers, pedestrians might also be injured while passing construction sites in Boca Raton.

Premises Liability

Any property owner who explicitly or implicitly invites someone else onto their property owes them a duty of care. Failure to meet this duty of care could result in injury that is compensable through a lawsuit. This applies differently depending on whether the guest was invited for business purposes, like a store customer, or non-business purposes, like a dinner guest at the owner’s private home.

Product Liability

Product manufacturers and leasing companies are responsible for the safety of anyone who might foreseeably come into contact with their products, so if they make or distribute defective products, they will be liable for the consequences. Depending on the situation, these defects could be hard to identify without the seasoned eye of a Boca Raton personal injury lawyer.

Intentional Violence

If a person intentionally harms someone else, the victim can pursue compensation in a Florida court from their aggressor. It is important to note that this is a separate legal action from criminal prosecution. You can file a civil lawsuit despite the existence of a criminal case, and your lawsuit could still succeed even if the defendant is found not guilty in their criminal case.

Steps to Take Before Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Boca Raton

After an accident in Boca Raton, victims should do several crucial things. Reporting injuries, documenting negligence, seeking medical attention, and hiring an attorney are all necessary steps Boca Raton personal injury victims should take. Completing each of these stages is important to protect your access to compensatory damages.

Report Injuries

Immediately after an accident in Boca Raton, report your injuries. If you are injured in a car accident, it is necessary to call the police. For construction accidents, workers should report injuries to an employer. If you were injured on another person’s property, be sure to inform the property owner of an accident in writing. Reporting requirements may change depending on the specifics of your recent accident in Boca Raton. If you are unsure how, when, and to whom you should report your injuries, ask your Boca Raton personal injury lawyer for clarification.

Document Negligence

When Boca Raton victims sustain injuries in an accident caused by another party, they deserve compensation. In order to recover damages, victims must prove that an at-fault party’s negligence caused their injuries. Because of that, it is crucial to document an accident after it occurs. Victims can achieve this by taking photos of the scene immediately afterward. Take photographs of anything that might indicate fault or negligence. For example, it often benefits victims to photograph damage to their vehicle and a negligent driver’s vehicle after a car accident. When in doubt, photograph everything. Your Boca Raton personal injury lawyer can analyze photos from an accident scene to determine negligence. If you cannot take photos because of your injuries, ask eyewitnesses or first responders to help you.

Seek Medical Attention

To recover compensation against a negligent party in a personal injury lawsuit, you must demonstrate that you incurred damages. Because of this, it is crucial for Boca Raton victims to visit the hospital immediately after an accident. This is necessary regardless of the severity of your injuries. Many injuries can worsen over time if left untreated. Not to mention, when victims fail to seek immediate and continuous medical care after an accident, their injuries may seem insignificant. Not going to the hospital right away can hurt your future compensation claim in Boca Raton.

Hire an Attorney

Navigating personal injury cases can be difficult for Boca Raton victims. Instead of going through it alone, hire an experienced attorney right away. A skilled Boca Raton personal injury lawyer can help you properly document and report your injuries after an accident and advise you on the ideal path for compensation. Often, the best choice is to pursue litigation against a negligent party. While that can be intimidating for some Boca Raton victims, it can also allow them to claim more substantial damages than filing an insurance claim. In some personal injury cases, filing an insurance claim is not an option. Acting quickly and hiring an attorney right away is crucial so that you can identify a negligent party and recover compensation sooner.

Time Limits on Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Boca Raton

For personal injury victims in Boca Raton, the ability to file a lawsuit to recover compensation does not last indefinitely. You only have as long to file as permitted under the State of Florida’s statute of limitations. The statute of limitations generally provides four years from the date of the injury to file a personal injury lawsuit.

Generally, Boca Raton victims have just four years from the date of injury to file a personal injury lawsuit against a negligent party. While this filing deadline is longer than that of some other states, it still does not provide victims with much time to decide whether or not to sue.

There are a few notable exceptions that can accelerate the timeline. For instance, victims of medical malpractice only have two years to file their lawsuit. If the party responsible for causing the harm is a government agent or entity, the plaintiff will have to meet specific notice requirements that vary depending on which government body they plan to sue.

Regardless of which time period applies to your case, courts take the statute of limitations and notice requirements very seriously. If you fail to file a lawsuit by the necessary date, you can lose your opportunity to recover compensation against a negligent party. Avoid any unfortunate delinquencies in filing by reaching out to a dedicated Boca Raton personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.

Proving Fault in a Boca Raton Personal Injury Case

Personal injury is an umbrella term referring to litigation that arising from various accidents. Because each personal injury case is unique, an attorney may use different tactics to prove a negligent party’s fault. While these lawsuits tend to vary, they have one important thing in common. In every personal injury claim, proving fault is essential in order for Boca Raton victims to recover compensatory damages.

In all Boca Raton personal injury cases, the burden of proof is the same, regardless of the reason for the claim. In these lawsuits, the burden of proof standard used is known as a preponderance of the evidence. Essentially, your attorney must prove that it is more likely than not that a negligent party’s actions caused your injuries. While that may seem like an easily achievable goal, it is often difficult and requires the experience of a skilled attorney.

Your Boca Raton personal injury lawyer search for compelling evidence to prove a defendant’s fault. Reports of injuries, eyewitness statements, photographs, security camera footage, and medical records can all be invaluable in a personal injury claim. Depending on your specific accident, an attorney may enlist help from experts to testify about a defendant’s negligence.

Boca Raton is subject to Florida’s pure comparative fault laws. These laws dictate that victims found to have contributed to an accident will see their damages reduced in proportion to their level of fault. Clearly, Florida’s pure comparative fault laws can severely impact personal injury claims, especially those brought by victims without an experienced attorney by their side. Your attorney can anticipate and disprove a defendant’s assertion that you contributed to an accident, so your damages are not wrongly reduced.

Calculating Damages for a Personal Injury in Boca Raton

It is important for any personal injury victim to have an understanding of how much they could recover for their case, particularly when approached by a defendant or their insurer with a settlement offer. Our Boca Raton personal injury lawyers can help you apply your harms under each of the following categories for calculating damages in Florida courts.

Economic Damages

The first step that your Boca Raton personal injury lawyer will likely take in evaluating how much your case is worth is to account for all of your direct financial losses stemming from your personal injury. This will primarily include your medical expenses incurred from necessary treatment that you receive. If your injuries prevent you from working or require you to make modifications to your home or vehicle, these costs will also be included in economic damages. Make sure to keep detailed records of all receipts and bills you receive that are connected to your personal injury.

Noneconomic Damages

Though not necessarily financial, the pain and suffering that your injuries cause are still compensable through a lawsuit. This is the reason why courts will award noneconomic damages on top of whatever direct economic harms the victim suffers. Since these are a little more difficult to tally up, it can be useful to have the help of a seasoned Boca Raton personal injury lawyer to help you in this effort.

Punitive Damages

In some cases, a Florida court may determine that compensatory damages, both economic and noneconomic, are not sufficient enough to punish the defendant for their particularly reckless or intentionally harmful behavior. These situations are where a court may award additional punitive damages, which are based on the defendant’s conduct rather than the harms that the victim sustained.

Get a Free Initial Case Assessment from The Carrion Law Firm

If you were recently injured because of another person’s negligent, intentional, or reckless act in Boca Raton, our attorneys can help. When you call the dedicated Boca Raton personal injury lawyers at The Carrion Law Firm today at (954) 951-4828, you can obtain a first-time case evaluation for free.