California Personal Injury Lawyers

While no two accidents are alike, there are measures that you can take to prevent further harm and strengthen your case. The following tips should not be construed as legal advice. For actual legal advice, contact the legal professionals at Caputo & Van Der Walde - Injury and Accident Attorneys, for a free consultation.

1. Listen to Your Doctors - If you don’t need to go to the emergency room, follow up with your doctor the next day or as soon as possible. It is important that you keep all medical appointments and follow your doctor’s advice on medication, rehabilitation, physical therapy, and more. Ke sure you don’t minimize or overstate your injuries. Also, make sure to discuss all injuries, even if one is more serious that another. If you fail to obtain or follow medical advice, the other side can claim you must not be very injured. Similarly, if your conditions are not notated by your health care providers, the condition doesn’t exist as far as the insurance companies are concerned.
2. Don’t Trust The Insurance Company – The insurance company is not your friend. They will be nice to you and try to obtain information to diminish the value of your claim. . Insurance companies stay in business by paying out as little as possible, even for valid claims. Insurance company representatives are often incentivized by the amount they pay out versus the amount they are authorized to pay and by quickly processing multiple claims.
3. Don’t Accept an Early Accident Settlement – The insurance company may offer you money for your medical expenses and other damages, but it will invariably fall short of maximum compensation. Adjusters will often try to settle quickly to prevent claimants from talking to an accident lawyer. If you accept their settlement, you will have to sign a waiver of liability, preventing you from pursuing further damages. In almost every serious case, you will be able to get you more money after accounting for attorney’s fees than you can get on your own.

The right personal injury lawyer can examine your claim and determine what it’s actually worth. They will then begin assembling evidence to determine the facts of the case. Once they have a full understanding of the accident and the nature of your injuries, only then will they approach the insurance company with a demand letter including all evidence of liability and damages. If a demand does not resolve the case, or it is not amenable to settlement by demand, a lawsuit will be filed to protect your rights. Caputo & Van Der Walde - Injury and Accident Attorneys how they can help you wih your personal injury case.

This depends on who the negligent party was in your case and what type of insurance coverage they have. Typivally defendants can include the person causing injury, their employer if they were working at the time, the owner of the care involved and the owner or management company of a commercia, residential or retail establishment. Our law firm will examine your case thoroughly to determine all of the responsible parties.

The statute of limitations is two years from the date of the accident, unless the injured party is a minor, a victim of childhood sexual assault, or a governmental entity is invloved.

This depends on the extent and duration of your injuries, past and future medical expenses, wage loss and the degree of liability of the defendant. Under California law, you can still pursue damages even if you’re partially at fault.

Most personal injury lawsuits settle before going to court. However, if your personal injury case goes to court, you’ll want a California personal injury attorney with extensive experience representing you in court — the kind of experience that the trial lawyers at Caputo & Van Der Walde - Injury and Accident Attorneys can offer.

Personal injuries run the gamut from minor bruises and cuts to serious injuries and even death. Here are some of the most common types of injuries that a California personal injury lawyer routinely sees in their practice:

1. Sprain/strain - This is extremely common in auto accidents. Commonly referred to as whiplash, and resulting in torn muscles, ligaments and tendons resulting from the sudden acceleration and deceleration from the head snapping forward and then backward or vice versa.
2. Broken bones – While motor vehicle accidents commonly result in broken bones, they are also a regular part of slip and fall accident claims. Slip and fall incidents result in broken knee caps which is a very debilitating injury and usually requires knee replacement surgery.
3. Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) – These can range from minor concussions to severe injuries involving bleeding in the brain, skull fractures or even objects penetrating the brain. TBIs can result from an automobile accident, a bad fall, an assault, or any other type of accident where the head is impacted or subjected to significant forces. Serious traumatic brain injuries require a dedicated care team and significant rehabilitation. People with serious TBI often do not return to their pre-injury condition.
4. Burns – Burns can result from exposure to heat or chemicals. Soup and hot liquid spills are the most common type of burn injuries and can result in second and third degree burns. Serious burns require skin grafting and plastic surgery to help remedy the burn scars.
5. Spinal Injuries – Spinal injuries can involve herniated discs, and often involve preexisting asymptomatic changes from aging that become symptomatic after a car accident. This type of injury can also be quite severe, at times resulting resulting in loss of sensation and weakness in limbs or even paralysis.
6. Catastrophic Injuries – This is a catchall term that includes any type of injury that results in a permanent or life-altering injury. These types of injury may result in a person no longer being able to work in their chosen field, or require ongoing care, often including pain management for chronic injuries.

If you’ve suffered any type of personal injury due to someone else’s negligence, seek medical treatment, and then speak to an experienced personal injury attorney about your right to pursue maximum compensation.

The state of California operates under comparative negligence law, which means that the fault of all persons involved in an injury producing incident are compared and must total 100%. As long as someone else is partially responsible for your injuries, you can pursue damages. For instance, if you were involved in a car accident where the other driver ran a red light, but you were speeding, the court may decide that you were 20% responsible for your injuries and the other driver was 80% at fault. In that case, a personal injury lawyer would pursue your total compensation, which would be reduced by your 20% comparative fault.

The following are the three types of damages in California personal injury cases:

Economic Damages

These include all financial costs associated with your personal injury, including medical bills, lost wages, property damage, the cost of ongoing medical treatment, etc. These are also referred to as Special Damages.

Non-economic Damages

Not all accident costs are financial. Non-economic damages or pain and suffering are intended to compensate injury victims for their physical pain, emotional distress, and general inconvenience. These are also referred to as General Damages.

Punitive Damages

In some instances, the courts may believe that the at-fault parties behaved in conduct that demonstrates a conscious disregard for the rights and safety of others or was intentionally calculated to hurt someone. In these cases, an injury victim is due additional damages to deter and punish the wrongdoer so that they do not engage in similar conduct in the future.

An experienced personal injury attorney is familiar with damage calculations for personal injury victims. When you contact Caputo & Van Der Walde - Injury and Accident Attorneys, damage calculations are just one of the services our legal team provides for our clients. Call today for a free consultation.

To establish that the defendant was liable, you must show the following:

Duty of Care

The duty of care means that the defendant had some level of responsibility for the safety of the plaintiff. For instance, all drivers have a duty of care to act reasonably relative to others on the roadways. Property owners, especially landlords, and retail business owners, have a duty of care to inspect their property and make sure it is safe for people on the property.

Breach of Duty

In order to prove liability under California personal injury law, the plaintiff’s attorney must demonstrate the defendant somehow breached their legal duty of care. An example of this would be a driver who runs a red light because they are looking at their phone texting instead of paying attention to the traffic signal.

Causation

This means that the breach of duty caused the accident or contributed to the accident and claimed injuries.

Damages

Damages consist of the injuries, economic losses, pain and suffering and anu punitive damages that an injured person is entitled to relative to an injury they sustained due to the negligence of another.

During your initial free consultation with a personal injury lawyer from Caputo & Van Der Walde - Injury and Accident Attorneys, they will determine whether negligence or other liability exists. If so, we can offer immediate legal representation on a contingency basis.