Harsh Reality Personal injury law can be complex and confusing. Furthermore, thanks in large part to the dramatization of the legal process in entertainment, there are plenty of misconceptions that arise. Unfortunately, the reality of personal injury lawsuits too often slaps plaintiffs in the face. We’ll cover some of the common misconceptions so that you can make informed decisions and not...
Swanson O’Dell
From The blog
How Injury Settlements Work
So You’ve Been Injured After the devastation of an injury, most people are left picking up the pieces. Damaged property, medical bills, and lost income can wreak havoc on a person’s life. While TV shows have often depicted injury plaintiffs as greedy opportunists looking for a large payout, the fact is that most of these people simply want some semblance of normality back in their lives....
How to Calculate Damages
Why Do I Need to Calculate Damages? When you file your case, you request from the court an amount to award you as compensation for your injury. You present your list of injuries and you state before the court what it is that those injuries have cost you. Sometimes, you may even ask for punitive damages to prevent the person who injured you from committing similar acts in the future. When you...
Statute of Limitations
A Limit on Justice? Many people are familiar with the idea of the statute of limitations because of crime dramas and documentaries. Pop culture has frequently portrayed these laws as capricious, confusing, and irrelevant, and to an injured plaintiff, that portrayal can feel painfully accurate. But the reality of their place and importance in our legal system cannot be avoided. Navigating through...
Understanding CA’s “Eggshell Plaintiff” Rule
What is an ‘Eggshell Plaintiff’ and When Does it Matter? Personal injury law has many complicated factors for determining who is responsible for harm, how much harm they are responsible for, and how much that harm is valued monetarily. It’s easy to imagine a healthy person struck by a reckless driver and suffering several broken bones. But other less quantifiable scenarios arise. What if the...
Serving a Lawsuit
Why Do I Need to Serve a Lawsuit? When you file paperwork for a lawsuit with the court, the next step is to ensure the other party is aware of it. After all, it would be fundamentally unjust for a court to adjudicate a lawsuit if you were not aware enough to defend yourself. When you file your paperwork, the court will give you two dates. The first date is the service date. The second is the...
Personal Injury vs. Worker’s Compensation
What Case Do I Have? When you suffer an injury, there are several different ways to get relief for your damages. Under the law, physical injuries usually fall under two areas of practice, personal injury law and worker’s compensation claims. These two areas are often very similar and can frequently overlap, so it’s important to know what sort of claim you are filing and the general principles...
California’s Strict Liability for Dog Owners
What is Strict Liability? Most all forms of law, whether criminal or civil, recognize the state of mind of the person who committed the act. In other words, there must have been some level of intent in the actions that caused the injury in order to hold someone liable. This intent could be negligence, failing to act with a reasonable amount of care, or it could be intentional, such as engaging...
Standards of Proof
Introduction If a case goes to trial, as the plaintiff, you bear the responsibility of proving your case against the defendant. Inversely, as the defendant, you enjoy the protection of the presumption of innocence. Contrary to popular belief, this presumption is not limited strictly to criminal law. Unlike criminal law, however, the threshold of how much has to be proven, and how clear that...
Negligence vs. Recklessness, Definitions Under CA Civil Law
Negligence and Recklessness: Why does it matter? Negligence and recklessness are often used interchangeably in everyday conversation. Unfortunately, the legal system doesn’t speak quite the same language as the average citizen and finds these two terms legally distinct. When you have suffered an injury, fully understanding these two concepts will aid you in knowing what you have to prove and...