100+ Years Experience Winning Personal Injury Cases In Arizona
Injuries happen. They can happen anywhere and at any time. And they happen often. In fact, one out of every four of us will have a personal injury at some point in our lives due to the carelessness or negligence of another person or entity. And when it happens, it is stressful financially, emotionally and physically. You are bound to have questions, too: What do I do now? Who pays for my injury? Who can help me with the process?
An experienced personal injury attorney in Tempe, AZ will be able to properly address your questions and put your concerns and fears to rest. If you have been injured, Nathaniel Preston is the personal injury lawyer with the experience, resources, and skills to answer your questions and prepare your case thoroughly in order to attain results.
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Do you know the law? Do you understand the claims or lawsuit process? Do you know how to investigate and analyze complex evidence? Do you know how to negotiate with aggressive claims adjusters and/or antagonistic attorneys for the defendant? Apart from knowledge of the law and process, negotiation is a vital skill in personal injury cases. You should consider your injury lawyer as your personal negotiator with the insurance company(s). Well over 90% of all personal injury cases are settled before they transform into lawsuits and come before a judge and jury.
Effective negotiation is fundamental to a settlement that provides you with the compensation that you both deserve and demand. Effective negotiation skills are not a “given” simply because a person has “Esquire” behind his or her name; effective negotiation is developed through practice, knowledge, and skill.
Find out if he or she has all five of the following characteristics:
In the end, you don’t need just any attorney; you need an experienced accident lawyer who can effectively negotiate. When you go to your consultation, consider the above qualities and ask yourself after the consultation: Did the attorney “sell” him/herself as the best attorney to help you get what you want and deserve in your personal injury case? Does the attorney have requisite knowledge and experience? Were you able to talk to him or her, and did the attorney listen to you? Did the attorney set expectations just right or too high that you went home thinking about everything you are going to do after you get your money: refurbish the house, go on a month trip, buy a new car now.
Finally, did you trust what the attorney said? If the attorney embodies these characteristics, then he or she just may be the attorney for you.
If you have suffered a personal injury in Tempe, Arizona, and are searching for an attorney, Nathaniel Preston is the personal injury lawyer for you. He has the knowledge, experience, skills, and resources to advocate in earnest on your behalf.
Personal injury cases come in all different forms and stem from all kinds of accidents. The central link to all personal injury cases is the fact that your injury was caused by another person’s or entity’s recklessness, carelessness or negligence. In Tempe, Arizona, most personal injury cases are caused by injuries sustained from (1) Automobile accidents (2) Medical malpractice (3) Slip and fall injuries, and (4) Dog bites.
In 2015, there were a total of 8,353 car accidents in Tempe, Arizona, that resulted in 14 deaths and 3,437 personal injuries. Arizona is an at-fault state and recognizes pure comparative negligence. When it comes to personal injuries stemming from an automobile accident, including pedestrian and bicyclists struck by automobiles, the at-fault driver is liable for all damages attributed to the accident, including economic and non-economic damages, if applicable. However, because it is a pure comparative negligence state, your damage reward will be reduced in accordance with the percentage you contributed to your personal injury. Thus, if your reward was $50,000, but you were 10 percent at-fault, you will receive only 90 percent of the $50,000 reward, a total of $45,000.
Being involved in a vehicle accident is terrified enough, but if you or a loved one have been injured in a truck accident is much worse. Big trucks are most likely to hurt an individual because of their size. The injuries are prompt to be much more severe than a regular auto accident and is crucial that you seek the right representation from a truck accident lawyer in Tempe to get the compensation you deserve.
A medical malpractice claim is invoked when a healthcare provider fails to provide appropriate care and you are injured because of it. In medical malpractice, personal injuries can be caused by both accidental and intentional negligence on behalf of healthcare professionals even though personal injury if most often the unintentional act of another person or entity that causes your harm. Medical malpractice claims are pretty common, too. In fact, a relatively recent peer-reviewed medical article reported that 7.4 percent of all physicians’ experience, at one point or another, a medical malpractice claim filed against him or her.
Medical malpractice claims are extremely complex and just as much difficult to win. In the same report, it was revealed that 78 percent of filed claims did not result in any kind of settlement to the claimant. You attorney, therefore, and as mentioned, must have excellent negotiation skills to settle the case on your behalf. Most settlements were made with neurosurgeons (19.1 percent), followed by cardiovascular surgeons (18.9 percent). The least amounts of settlements were made with pediatric healthcare providers (3.1 percent) and psychiatrists (2.6 percent).
Defective and/or dangerous products can effectuate a number of defective product liability claims throughout any given year. Many times such a claim can trigger a recall or class action lawsuit. These claims arise when a consumer uses a product and is injured by it. A defective product liability claim will likely fall under one of three categories:
A manufacturer has a duty of care to ensure the safe design of its products. If a defective design is known, the manufacturer must recall the product. If someone is injured, the entity is liable. All defectively designed products have an issue with the design of the product, not the manufacture of the product. For instance, a recliner may have a new method to recline, but if the cord is pulled too hard, the recliner can throw you out of the chair. Other examples of defectively designed products include:
A manufacturer has a duty of care to ensure that products are assembled properly. If a product is assembled improperly and it causes harm to a consumer, the manufacturer is liable. All defectively manufactured products have an issue with the assembling of the product, not the design of the product. For instance, the design of a chair may be fine, but one particular chair came with a cracked leg. Other examples include:
A manufacturer must provide warnings and/or instructions, especially when a product may be dangerous if used in a way that does not seem obviously dangerous by the consumer. If instructions or a warning are not provided, the manufacturer could be liable. In this case, the product is designed and manufactured properly, but the company failed to provide instructions or a warning of a feature that could be dangerous if used improperly. For instance, a massage chair may have a heating feature to it, and a consumer gets the idea to warm a towel with a certain chemical in it, and the heat causes the towel to catch fire. If there was no warning, then the company could be liable.
Slip and fall cases are also a common type of personal injury case. In these types of cases, it is the property owner who owes a duty of care to three types of persons: (1) invitees; (2) licensees; and (3) trespassers. The standard of care is least for the trespasser and most for the invitee, but in all cases, circumstances will best define the degree of the standard of care. When the standard of care is breached, the property owner is liable and you have the right to file a claim, and in the alternative, file a lawsuit.
When a slip and fall accident occurs at work, you also have another option: a workers’ compensation claim. This claim is automatically filed by your employer, but in some cases, you may need to seek an attorney’s assistance, for instance, when:
Dog bites happen a lot more than you might think. In fact, a dog bites a person in the United States every 75 seconds, and each day more than 1,000 U.S. citizens are treated in emergency rooms for dog bite injuries. According to the Insurance Information Institute, in 2016, dog bite liability claims throughout the United States accounted for more than one-third of all payouts made by homeowners’ insurance; the costs amounted to more than $600 million. That is a lot of dog bites, and in Arizona alone, there were 34,000 reported dog bites between 2008 and 2012. Get help from an experienced dog bite lawyer to get the best case results possible.
Because of the severity of the matter, Arizona is a strict liability dog bite state. Unlike states where you are not liable for the first bite if there was never an indication that the dog might bite someone, in Arizona, you are liable for the first bite regardless of any known or unknown tendencies of the dog. You are liable if the claimant proves that she or he was (1) bitten by a dog; and (2) bitten in a public place or a private place that the claimant was lawfully permitted to be.
The standard statute of limitations for personal injury claims in Arizona is 2 years from the date of the incident. There are a couple of exceptions to the standard deadline.
In Arizona, the Constitution prevents a court from limiting or placing a cap on damages. Your final settlement, nonetheless, may be reduced according to your contribution to the injury regardless if you are found to be zero percent at fault or 99 percent at fault, or anywhere in between the two. Damages come in the form of two types:
1. Special Damages. These damages refer to medical and/or other related expenses that flow directly from the injury sustained in the accident. It includes:
2. General Damages. These damages refer to non-pecuniary damages, which are damages that are not always easily quantifiable. It includes:
If you have been injured in or around Tempe, Arizona, contact Nathaniel Preston. He is experienced. He is aggressive. And he offers legal services in Tempe as well as the greater Phoenix, Arizona community. Contact him today to discuss your case for free.