How A Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help You
If you've been injured due to the fault of someone else, then you might wonder about your options. After all, you might have some hefty medical bills from the injury, not to mention the reduced quality of life and lost hours of work. Is there any way to get justice and compensation for your injury? Your answer comes in the form of the personal injury lawyer, who can help you create a lawsuit.
What is a personal injury lawyer?
Although any lawyer could technically help you build a personal injury case, a personal injury lawyer (such as one from John Tamming Law Office) is exceptionally experienced in the field, and thus is best qualified to help you. Personal injury lawyers are heavily involved in the field of tort law, in contrast to prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys, who generally work in criminal law.
Tort vs. Criminal Law
Therefore, it's important to determine the different between an injury that is in the realm of tort law and an injury that falls under criminal law. If you were assaulted, sexually nor not, then your case is probably a criminal matter, which means that it will be pursued by the government against your attacker. If the circumstances of your injury do not fit the definition of a crime, then you will likely need to pursue the matter through tort law.
Tort law covers cases between people and businesses, rather than between people and the government. If the harm was accidental or unintended, then it might be grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. In general, tort law results in a gain of financial compensation for the victim while criminal law tends to result in punishment or rehabilitation for the offender.
Which injuries qualify?
Among the most common sources of personal injury lawsuits are car accidents. As long as you weren't directly at fault in the accident (such as driving under the influence or falling asleep behind the wheel), and there was another person involved, then you might have a case. Even if you were the only one in the accident, you might have a case if there was something defective about your car that caused the crash. However, you can't always legally blame your accident on a malfunction. If you were aware of the malfunction, yet did not get it repaired, then the fault might still lie with you.
You might also have a case if you suffered from negligence, which means that another party was willfully ignorant of circumstances that might have led to your injury. For instance, if your employer failed to notify you of hazardous conditions, then you could sue for negligence.
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