The damages caused by a car accident, slip and fall, medical malpractice, and nursing home neglect can be extensive. If you’ve been harmed in one of these incidences, then you’re probably struggling to make ends meet as medical expenses come due and lose out on the wages that you otherwise could be earning. Your pain and suffering might be unbearable, too. All in all, its normal for victims of these incidences to feel like their future is bleak. But there is hope for your future, and a personal injury lawsuit can help.
But if you’re thinking about taking legal action, then you might be asking yourself what you can do strengthen your case and maximize your chances of successfully recovering the compensation you deserve. Here are a few things to consider in your case:
- Accident reconstruction: If you’ve been injured in a car accident that involved multiple vehicles, then you may want to consider having an accident reconstruction conducted. Here, an expert applies the rules of physics to the evidence at hand to come to a determination as to how the accident happened and who is responsible for causing it. Tire marks, vehicle resting positions, eyewitness accounts, and even road and weather conditions will be taken into account. Once the reconstruction is completed, the expert will write up a report that can help you in negotiations and litigation.
- Other expert testimony: Expert testimony can give your case a lot of weight. A doctor, a nurse practitioner, even someone familiar with nursing home regulations can help educate a judge and jury as to the applicable standard of care and illustrate how that standard was breached in your case. In addition to helping establish liability, these experts can also go a long way toward helping you prove the full extent of your damages, which can increase the likelihood that you’ll recover the compensation you truly need. Your attorney can help you identify experts who might be necessary or otherwise helpful to your case.
- Prepare to counter comparative fault: In New York, the amount of compensation that you recover in a personal injury lawsuit can be reduced by the percentage of fault allocated to you. Therefore, if you waited to seek follow up care after being subjected to medical malpractice or you were distracted at the time of your car accident, then the defense is going to be ready to pounce. You need to be honest with the circumstances of your case so that you can better anticipate those defense arguments and work to create strategies to counter them.
- Gather pertinent documents: Documentary evidence can be powerful in a personal injury case. Therefore, do your best to obtain photographs, police reports, medical records, and even nursing home and hospital regulation violations to help support your case. These documents aren’t always easy to get, though, which is why you might need an attorney to help you subpoena them.
- Be thorough with witnesses: Whether they are prepared to testify in support of your case or against it, you need to know everything about the witnesses in play and what they need to say. This means engaging in appropriate discovery, which is the process through which you learn what information the other side has. This includes conducting depositions, which is sworn testimony taken outside of court and at some point prior to trial, so that you can learn what witnesses know, lock them into their testimony, and give yourself a chance to point out their inconsistent testimony if their story or position changes at trial.
Don’t be overwhelmed, be prepared
These are just a few of the many considerations that you need to take into account as you prepare your personal injury claim. It’s a lot, and it can certainly become daunting. But you owe it to yourself to build the best personal injury claim you can under the circumstances. That’s why it might be in your best interests to work closely with a competent, well-informed personal injury law firm you can give you the individualized attention you deserve.
