West Lafayette plays host to as many, if not more, college students as it does locals. Unfortunately, it’s those college students playing football in the quad or participating in extracurricular sports who are often more likely to find themselves contending with a spinal injury than their peers.
That said, locals and students alike are at risk for spinal injuries when the people around them refuse to uphold their duty of care. If you or someone you love recently endured a negligence-based spinal injury, you understand that these accidents can feel like they come out of nowhere.
Fortunately, you have the right to legal action in the wake of a spinal cord injury brought on by someone else’s negligence. You can meet with a Vaughan & Vaughan spinal cord injury lawyer in West Lafayette to pursue compensation for your losses. Our West Lafayette personal injury attorneys can stand by your side as you negotiate for a settlement or take your losses to court.
Spinal Cord Injuries in Personal Injury Cases
Spinal cord injury cases constitute personal injury cases in the eyes of Indiana’s civil courts. This means that if you want to take legal action in the wake of a spinal cord injury accident, you need to ensure that the claim you file upholds the state’s formatting standards for personal injury claims. An experienced Indiana Personal Injury Lawyer can guide you through this process and help ensure your claim is properly filed.
Vaughan & Vaughan’s team of attorneys has several combined decades of experience contending with Indiana’s formatting policies. We know what information we need to bring forward if you want to fight for compensation after a spinal cord injury. This information includes the following:
- The nature of your accident
- Whose negligence resulted in your accident
- What evidence you have of that negligence
- The nature of your economic losses
- What evidence you have defending the value of those losses
Reacting to Fatal Spinal Cord Injuries
Unfortunately, spinal injuries can often prove fatal. If you lose a loved one to a spinal cord injury that stemmed from someone else’s negligence, you may have the right to take legal action on that party’s behalf.
Indiana law notes that if a child passes due to a fatal spinal cord injury, one or both of that child’s parents can take legal action in that child’s name. If an adult passes due to a spinal cord injury, though, only that person’s personal executor can take legal action on their behalf.
The state notes in Indiana Code section 34-23-1-2 that it considers the term “child” to constitute anyone under the age of 20 or anyone under the age of 23 who is also enrolled in college or a technical school.
You can meet with West Lafayette’s spinal cord injury lawyers to determine whether or not you qualify to take legal action on behalf of a deceased loved one.
Your Case Will Get
The Attention It Deserves
Do You Need to Work With a Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer?
Even if you want to pursue compensation for a spinal cord injury, you do not have a legal obligation to work with a personal injury attorney. You can represent your or a loved one’s own best interests. That process, however, does require you to investigate your own losses, compile your own complaint, and either manage negotiations or go to trial on your own.
When you’re contending with a spinal cord injury and the physical limitations that come with it, achieving all of those goals can prove challenging. If you’re not careful, your statute of limitations may expire before you have time to demand damages for your losses.
If you work with an attorney, however, you can request that said attorney represent you in an investigation as well as negotiations or a trial. Our spinal cord injury lawyers in West Lafayette can discuss the full breadth of our services with you during an initial case consultation if you find yourself reluctant to commit to represented legal action.
There is no fee
unless you win
Filing a Personal Injury Claim
You have no more than two years to bring a spinal cord injury case forward in Indiana civil courts, as stated in Indiana Code section 34-11-2-4. This means that you have two years to bring forward:
Evidence of Liability
There are several parties who can assume responsibility for your spinal cord injury accident, ranging from construction crews to corporate drivers to private pedestrians. If you want to hold any of these parties responsible for your accident, though, you need to bring forward evidence of those parties’ negligence and its relationship to your accident. The evidence you bring forward can include the following:
- Expert witness statements, including medical opinions regarding your health
- Police statements speculating on accident fault
- Statements from bystanders
- Physical debris
- Videos or photos from the accident scene
You’re under no obligation to gather evidence of spinal cord injury negligence without professional guidance. West Lafayette spinal cord injury attorneys can return to an accident scene and even meet with expert witnesses on your behalf to build your case.
Your Estimated Compensation
Your right to spinal cord injury compensation hinges on your ability to bring forward evidence tying your medical expenses, property damage, and related losses in civil court. You must defend every damage that you include in your desired spinal cord injury compensation.
That said, your request for compensation can include tangible losses from a spinal cord injury accident, including your aforementioned medical bills, as well as intangible or non-economic losses. Our team can demand that a liable party provide you with financial support to pay for your:
- Spinal surgeries
- Physical therapy
- Pain management
- At-home mobility aids
- Property damage, restoration, and repair
- Lost wages or opportunities to work
- Emotional distress
- Pain and suffering
- Stress
You can discuss your right to some of the more nebulous personal injury damages noted here during an initial spinal cord injury case consultation.
Contact a Spinal Cord Injury Attorney Today
Whether you’re a student who’s recently been in a car accident or a local injured in a slip and fall, you can suffer spinal damage at any moment. If you can trace your loss back to negligence, though, you can hold an irresponsible party responsible for the economic losses you suffered in the face of their misconduct.
The West Lafayette, IN, spinal cord injury lawyers with Vaughan & Vaughan can investigate your recent accident and bring your losses to a civil judge’s attention. If you want to learn more about the personal injury claims process or request representation, you can contact our law firm today. Let’s schedule your free case consultation before your statute of limitations expires.
