How Bad Does An Injury Have To Be To File A Claim?
Someone who has suffered an injury due to another party's actions or negligence may want to pursue a claim. However, they might also worry that they don't have injuries that are serious enough to pursue damages. If you're wondering how bad things have to be for you to file a claim or sue, a personal injury lawyer will tell you the following four things.
Medical Bills
One of the easiest ways to determine if an injury is worthy of a claim is to look at whether there are any medical bills. This is one of the main reasons a personal injury attorney will encourage you to see medical attention immediately after an incident. You need to document what happened so you can point to real damages and seek compensation.
An injury doesn't have to lead to major medical bills. You have the right to file a claim even if the hospital only charged you a couple of thousand dollars for care.
Physical Injuries
The presence of a physical injury is also useful in supporting a claim. Notably, the injuries don't need to be visible. A person could have experienced brain damage from a head trauma without necessarily having any outward signs of an injury, for example.
Your injuries don't have to be that extreme. Even a broken bone or torn ligament can justify an injury claim if it limited your range of motion, caused you pain, or led to the loss of working ability.
Injury claims can extend to illnesses. Suppose a lab worker negligently handled a pathogen in a way that led to you suffering exposure. That counts as a valid injury for the purpose of filing a claim or suing.
Psychological Trauma
People have the right to pursue damages for psychological traumas, too. Many states, however, require the filer of an injury claim to have suffered physical issues before they can demand compensation for psychological ones. A minority of states permit claims based purely on grounds of psychological trauma. However, you should ask a personal injury lawyer to review the case and tell you what the rules are where you'll be filing.
Fault
Be aware that another party has to be the one most at fault for what happened before you can demand damages. This is sometimes called the 51-percent standard. In most states, a defendant has to be more responsible for what happened than the victim. A few states use different rules so it's wise to ask a personal injury attorney what the law says in your state.
