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Minor car accidents can still lead to major injuries in Chicago because your body isn’t designed to handle even the sudden jolt of a low-impact collision. The forces involved in minor crashes can make your body move in unnatural ways that cause severe injuries, especially if you weren’t braced for the impact. Insurance companies often downplay these injuries. Understanding why and how injuries occur in low-speed crashes can help ensure you protect your health and legal rights.
Knowing why car accident evidence disappears, and how to preserve it, is the first step in protecting your rights. Weather conditions can wash away tire marks and debris, surveillance systems automatically delete or overwrite footage after set periods, and witnesses may become unreliable or unavailable over time. When crucial evidence from your Chicago car accident case vanishes, it can undermine your claim and affect your compensation. While you focus on recovering from your injuries and managing medical treatment, a car accident lawyer can employ legal tools to preserve this essential evidence before it's lost forever. Acting swiftly to protect evidence creates a strong foundation for your case and could significantly impact your outcome.
When a delivery truck driver causes an accident in Chicago, the truck driver or the delivery company is generally the party liable for the accident. Whether the driver is an employee of the delivery company and what the driver was doing when the crash happened will affect who you can hold liable in a Chicago delivery truck accident. Depending on circumstances, other third parties, such as the owner of the vehicle, the vehicle’s manufacturer, and cargo loaders, may also be liable.
If you were injured in a trucking accident in Chicago, Berwyn, Oak Lawn, Cicero, or a nearby community, call the injury attorneys at Lloyd Miller Law for a free consultation.
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Preparing for a car accident claim can be as simple as providing police reports and medical records from the post-accident care you’ve received. It can also become quite complicated, depending on the circumstances of the accident and how difficult the insurance company has decided to be in defending its profits. Chicago car accident attorneys will be able to give you the best possible chance of receiving a settlement that comes close to making you whole financially.
Like any personal injury lawsuit, you’ll first need to prove that another person or business entity is responsible for your injuries and was negligent. Where a case becomes more complicated for a self-employed person is in the calculation of lost wages. If you work for someone else, either as an hourly or salaried employee, it is rather straightforward to calculate how many hours or days of work you lost due to your injuries and provide a letter stating what regular compensation and bonuses, commissions, or other forms of compensation you missed out on. You can also include any sick, vacation, or bonus days you had to use during your hospitalization and recovery. If you are self-employed, the process becomes more complicated.
Per se negligence laws are a useful tool in a lawsuit when evidence of negligence is harder to acquire. If you are trying to win a slip and fall settlement, for example, your attorney will likely approach the case in a manner that fits a standard negligence case. However, if you’ve been hit by a drunk driver or otherwise injured in a car accident by someone who violated traffic laws and was cited in the process, you may be able to use negligence per se laws to sue for damages due to the injuries you sustained.
Negligence and causation are the primary grounds to sue for emotional trauma under Illinois law. Negligence means that you suffered mentally due to the failure of the other party to perform his or her duty. Causation implies that the negligence or intention of the other party caused your mental suffering.
The value of pedestrian accident claims can vary significantly because each case is unique and different factors are considered. The amount also varies greatly depending on whether the injured person accepts the initial settlement offer from the insurance company or takes the matter to court.
In Chicago, you generally have two years to file a lawsuit for nursing home neglect or abuse. If you fail to take legal action before time runs out, you could lose your right to recover compensation for your injuries.
For elder abuse cases and other types of personal injury claims, the clock usually starts ticking on the day the injury occurs. However, some forms of abuse, such as financial exploitation, or abuse against someone with dementia, take some time to discover. For such cases, the two-year period starts running on the date of discovery.
The clock starts ticking on the statute of limitations when you discover that you suffered harm due to delayed treatment. You can call this the knowledge date. On this date, you discover that you suffered further illness or harm, the harm or progression were significant, and there is a clear link between late treatment and the progression/harm.
There are special cases that extend the time you have to file a lawsuit beyond two years. A good example of these circumstances is when the patient is under 18. In such a case, the two-year litigation window starts ticking when he or she reaches 18.