One of the most common causes of injury in the United States is slip and fall accidents. The injuries from these accidents can be very serious, including the potential for traumatic brain injury. Unfortunately, the mundane settings and circumstances of many slip and fall accidents often keeps people from seeking the compensation they deserve.
If you’re reading this, you may have been seriously hurt in a slip and fall. It’s likely you’re still in pain, and you’ve probably missed enough work to worry about your finances. You are probably looking for someone to help you with a slip and fall claim.
We are here to help. Our firm offers free legal advice. Call our Utah slip and fall lawyers today.
Please don’t hesitate because you’re concerned about needing cash to speak to a lawyer. Reach out as soon as you possibly can to schedule your free legal consultation.
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There are several ways our Utah slip and fall lawyers can help you achieve optimal results for your claim. Many of them have to do with protecting the value of your claim.
Even before you retain an attorney, there are ways you can help protect your claim’s value.
Though it may be hard to believe, the fight or flight response people experience during traumatic events can trick you into believing you aren’t as injured as you may be. During this response, adrenaline spikes, dulling pain while providing a boost of energy and strength. Though this is temporary, it can lead the unaware to think they are okay when they may need immediate medical attention.
The best way to make sure you aren’t at risk of permanent injury or death from internal injuries is to seek medical help right after the accident. Don’t make dangerous assumptions, let a doctor determine whether you’re okay.
If you don’t get checked, not only do you put your health at risk, but you also risk your insurance claim. The insurance company will be more than happy to challenge whether you were seriously injured if you give them the opportunity. The sooner you get to a doctor, the more closely your medical report will align with the time and date of the accident event. Medical documentation of your injuries is powerful proof to support your claim the insurance company will not be able to ignore.
After you’ve been treated for your accident injuries and sent home, you’ll be given doctors’ orders for the best ways you can support your recovery. This is your treatment plan. Many people fail to realize that not following their treatment plan can jeopardize their slip and fall claim.
Like seeking medical treatment right after the accident, sticking to your treatment plan removes an opening for the insurance company to knock down the value of your slip and fall claim.
The value of your claim is going to be based in large part on your damages — how the accident has negatively impacted your life. The worse the impact, the higher the compensation.
But your claim’s value will also rely on proving the insurance company is responsible for compensating you because their policy holder is at-fault for these damages.
If you could have recovered completely from your injuries had you followed your treatment plan, but you didn’t follow it, suddenly the insurance company can blame you instead of their client.
Take for example, an injury that has left you without full range of motion in your dominant hand, preventing you from being capable of many tasks. If the insurance company’s investigator can prove you’ve been skipping physical therapy sessions, they can blame you for not making a full recovery.
Or, if the investigator has surveillance video of you riding a horse while recovering from a hip injury when you shouldn’t. If your hip never completely recovers, the insurance company will try to blame you for taxing your hip joint. The less they are to blame for your condition, the less they pay. They’ll be looking for every chance to lower your compensation.
So, take your medicine as prescribed, attend your therapy sessions, do everything the doctors advise you do, and refrain from activities you are instructed not to do. Following your treatment plan is another way you can protect the strength of your claim.
After your claim is opened, you can expect an insurance adjuster to call asking to record your statement about the accident. The caller may imply agreeing to this will help streamline your claim and get it processed faster. This is not true.
The insurance adjuster is calling to help the insurance company and only the insurance company. If you take that call, you will be at the mercy of all the manipulations the company uses to get people to relax and make small talk. And they will use anything you say that can be interpreted in their favor to lower the value of your claim.
Your Utah slip and fall lawyers know how to communicate with the insurance company to protect your slip and fall claim from devaluation. Having your attorney handle all communications with the insurance company will prevent confusion that can create an opening to damage your claim.
Many people mistakenly believe they’ll save money by skipping the lawyer and going it alone. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Most claimants who handle their claims without an attorney are awarded far less than those who hire capable legal representation. When you look at the section above about the many ways an attorney can help you, it’s easy to see why it’s best to retain a lawyer.
The toughest time to take on the challenge of making a successful claim against the insurance industry is when you’re recovering from a serious injury. Having one of our experienced Utah slip and fall lawyers will help you protect the value of your claim while allowing you to rest and recover.
After being seriously injured in a slip and fall accident, it’s understandable that finding an attorney may not be at the top of your to-do list. You may still be in a hospital or rehabilitation facility. You may still be experiencing pain. You may simply be feeling overwhelmed by what you’ve just gone through.
If you go by the statute of limitations on filing your claim in deciding when to look for a lawyer, you may think you’ve got lots of time. Long before the filing deadline, however, you’ve got to make sure your attorney has a chance to conduct a thorough investigation and gather evidence.
This investigation will play a crucial role in supporting your claim and establishing all at-fault parties. The longer you wait, the less evidence your attorney is likely to find. Even if you have witnesses, they may relocate over time and become impossible to find. In addition, their memories of the accident are only going to get less clear with the passage of time.
Give your Utah slip and fall lawyers the best chance to build you a strong claim by reaching out as quickly as possible.
If you’re feeling too overwhelmed or burdened by pain to do an online search, ask a loved one to help. It’s likely they’ll be happy to have a way they can assist in your recovery. They can search for slip and fall lawyers online, read through attorney websites and directories, and check out online ratings and reviews. They can bring you their recommendations and then reach out to schedule interviews with the ones you are interested in.
When you or a loved one seeks out a lawyer, be sure you look for a personal injury trial lawyer with a successful record of resolving slip and fall claims. All slip and fall lawyers are attorneys, but not all attorneys are slip and fall lawyers. The person you retain should spend most of their time in the practice area of personal injury and be comfortable taking your case to a jury.
Not every claim will need to go to court to succeed. In fact, most are resolved via settlement. But if your slip and fall claim must go all the way to trial to bring you the compensation you deserve, you will need to have a lawyer who can win in the courtroom.
The story below is intended to help you get a better idea of what’s involved in a slip and fall claim. We’ve changed names and details to protect our clients’ privacy, but you can gain insight from it just the same. Please read to the end and then reach out to schedule a free legal consultation. We’d like to answer your questions about your own claim.
On a warm summer day not so long ago, John Shelton was enjoying his morning coffee checking the news when the vandals arrived. As he stared over his laptop screen in disbelief, two gray squirrels worked in tandem to empty his obscenely expensive “squirrel-proof” feeder.
“Emma!” He sputtered, jumping to his feet. His wife of thirty-eight years turned from the stove where she was stirring a pot of cream of wheat.
“Look at them. Just look!” John stammered, waving toward the sliding glass door. Thirty-seven bucks for a useless bird feeder. ‘Squirrel-proof’ my butt”
“Language, Dear,” Emma chided, adding, “Aren’t you going to shoo them away?”
“There’s no point. They’ll just come right back. In fact, I suspect they think this is funny,” John said as he and Emma stood in the dining area, a foot away from the slider, in full view as they watched the little bandits.
One squirrel would climb the post and hang upside down by its feet from the hook holding the feeder. It would then push down on the bird perch to release seeds onto the ground — not enough to close the seed slot — just enough to start a stream of seeds, as if a bird were perched there instead.
The seeds would spill to the ground, where a second squirrel was waiting to eat its fill or fill its cheeks; they weren’t sure. Then the squirrels would switch places. It really was genius.
“You almost have to admire their enterprising efforts,” Emma said, marveling.
“Bah!” John huffed. “I’m returning that useless feeder. If they’re going to get at the seed anyway, we may as well exchange it for a seven dollar feeder. The box is still in the garage.”
He stopped with his hand on the man door to the garage. “Do you happen to still have the receipt?”
“I’m sure I do. I always save receipts for at least a month before throwing them out,” Emma said, picking her way through her bill basket.
As she searched for the receipt, John retrieved the feeder’s packaging from the garage.
“Here it is,” Emma said, plucking the receipt from the basket and handing it to her husband as he re-entered the kitchen. He was tucking it into his wallet when Emma said, “Oh look, pigeons!”
It was bad enough the squirrels had made a mess gorging on the spilled seeds right in front of them. Now there was a flock of pigeons jostling for seeds as well. John gaped.
Grabbing the box, he flung open the door, shouting and waving his free arm. “Dag nabbit you heathens!” John cursed nonsensically as the crowd around the feeder dispersed, only to return the second he trudged back to the house.” Emma turned away before he could see her giggling.
Forty minutes later John was in line at the home improvement store with his ineffectual bird feeder. Though the line wasn’t long, and he didn’t get any hassle from the clerk, he was a bit annoyed that the clerk laughed at his story.
“Yeah, those squirrels are crazy smart!” the seventeen-year-old clerk declared as he processed the refund.
Money in hand, John marched across the concrete floor to the garden center to pick up a cheap feeder. As he stepped inside the sliding doors, his heel landed in a puddle of water, and he took flight.
John woke up in the hospital. Emma was sitting by his side, looking as pale and gray as the wall behind her. She told him he’d suffered a traumatic brain injury and a bruised tailbone.
The couple was anxious and felt completely overwhelmed with what had happened. Their son and daughter both arrived to provide support and help.
Over the next week, they learned that John was experiencing short term memory problems. He was unsteady on his feet since the accident, and though he remembered how to read, write, and speak, his hands were shaky enough to make many routine tasks difficult. He was going to be in the hospital for at least three more weeks, and then likely be transferred to a rehabilitation facility to continue his recovery.
At the end of the first week when their daughter Olivia called the personal injury law firm of Parker & McConkie to schedule a free legal consultation for her parents. Attorney Brad Parker sat down with the couple in John’s hospital room two days later.
“Thank you for meeting with us,” Emma said as Attorney Parker sat down. “Before we get started, may I ask what it would cost if we were to hire you?” Her cheeks flushed and she looked down at her clasped hands. “Hopefully, we’re not the first to ask that question.”
“Not at all,” said Attorney Parker. That’s the first question almost everyone asks. It’s completely understandable and expected,” he assured them.
“The answer is, there is no up-front cost. Parker & McConkie utilizes a contingency-fee model. This means we cover all case expenses until your claim is resolved. Investigation, administration costs, research, communication with the insurance company, even the cost of litigation and expert witnesses, should they become necessary, are all covered. In the end, our firm only receives compensation when we successfully resolve your claim.”
“Okay, well, that is remarkably helpful,” said Emma, smiling at her husband.
John cleared his throat and asked, “How much is a claim like mine typically worth?”
“Well, though many people suffer from slip and fall injuries, there truly is no ‘typical’ claim value,” said Parker. “And that’s because your claim’s value will depend on factors specific to your accident and injuries, as well as your level of health before you were injured.
“We’ll first need to conduct a thorough accident investigation to prove the store breached their duty of care. This means they did not fulfill their obligation to keep shoppers safe on their premises.
“Next, we’ll need to show that their failure to prevent a slip and fall on wet concrete led to the accident and the accident led to your injuries. Our investigations also identify all at-fault parties, in case there is more than one. So, the investigation is the first key to your claim’s value.
“The second key is your damages. These are all the ways your injuries have negatively impacted your life. To accurately determine damages, we’ll need you to reach maximum medical improvement. This means recovering all the way back to your pre-accident level of health,” said Attorney Parker.
John looked at his wife anxiously. “And what if he can’t do that?” Emma asked.
“Then his maximum medical improvement will be reached when his doctors tell us he has reached the highest level of recovery possible,” said Attorney Parker. He turned to John. “Your doctors will also let us know when they feel they’ve got a solid idea of any future issues you’ll need to deal with due to your injuries.
“Our firm will be in close communication with your medical team to ensure we know how you’re doing and when you’ve reached maximum medical improvement. Your job, Mr. Shelton, will be to direct all your energy into your recovery. This means getting as much rest as possible and following your treatment plan. Don’t skip your physical therapy exercises and definitely don’t overdo anything. We want steady progress to help you continue to move forward with your health.
“Once you reach maximum medical improvement, we’ll understand your economic and non-economic damages, and that’s when we’ll know the value of your claim.
John listened and nodded. “Sounds reasonable. Not what I’d hoped to hear, but I guess it wouldn’t be realistic for you to arrive at a claim value before knowing our damages and the other information specific to my accident.”
“Correct,” Attorney Parker said. “Working from the information we gain in the investigation as well as your damages is the only way to arrive at a compensation amount we can back up with facts. It will also ensure we include all at-fault parties and all damages in your claim. When we give you your claim’s value, it will be something you can rely on.”
“How long will all of this take?” Asked Emma.
“The first thing the claim’s timeline will depend on is how long it takes Mr. Shelton to reach maximum medical improvement, since he’ll need to get there for us to determine his damages. Once he reaches maximum medical improvement and we know how much compensation we should request, we’ll send a demand letter to the insurance company.
“From that point on, the timeline of the claim will depend on how the insurance company responds. If they agree to a full and fair settlement, we’ll wrap up the claim without further delay. If, however, they refuse to offer a fair settlement amount, we’ll take them to court and sue.
“Naturally, you can expect a trial to extend the timeline of the claim, but please do your best not to let the possibility worry you. Our attorneys have a winning track record in resolving slip and fall claims via settlement and at trial. If the insurance company is paying attention — which they often are — they will be aware of this and may offer to settle to reduce the risk of losing to a jury award.
“There are no guarantees your claim will be won at the negotiating table,” Attorney Parker said, “But either way, the trial attorneys at Parker & McConkie will be ready. That’s why we’ll always recommend you retain a trial attorney to handle your claim, whether you choose us or another firm. You have the right to pursue compensation, no matter which route your lawyer must take to get there.”
John and Emma were satisfied with what they learned during their free legal consultation. They retained Parker & McConkie, and Attorney Parker got John over six times the amount the insurance company initially offered him.
We hope the information above has helped you get a good overview of what to expect in your slip and fall claim. Since no two claims are the same, we hope you’ll call our Utah slip and fall lawyers to schedule a free legal consultation as soon as possible. Let us guide you through the complexities of your claim to bring you the best possible outcome. Call us today.
Call 801-845-0440 to get in touch with a member of our firm after your accident. We can review your case for free!
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