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Four Things Your Fall Case Must Have | Part 2

You must prove that as a result of the fall on the unsafe condition, you have suffered financial or other intangible losses. Financial losses may include wages, your ability to earn wages, medical expenses that you have paid or are obligated to pay, as well as, medical expenses you most likely will have to pay in the future. Your lawyer will need the help of your doctor and perhaps other experts in proving your financial losses, such as a vocational expert and an economist.

Intangible losses are those things which you can not precisely calculate. They include what you've often heard of as pain and suffering damages. This includes emotional and physical pain, suffering, scarring, disfigurement, inconvenience and loss of the enjoyment of life.

Your financial and "pain and suffering" damages must be large enough for an insurance company to feel economically threatened by your claim. Small damage cases do not motivate an insurance company to take your claim seriously, because they know you will have difficulty finding a lawyer to pursue them.

Fourth: The ability of the responsible party to pay your damages

In evaluating whether to accept your fall injury case, any lawyer must decide if the responsible party actually has some way to pay for your loss. This usually comes down to whether they have insurance coverage. Your lawyer will require the responsible party to provide proof of any liability insurance in effect at the time, which may offer coverage for your losses caused by your injury.

Many large commercial companies such as retail stores, apartment complexes, and big box stores may be self insured. That means they will pay any settlement or jury award from their own funds. Some businesses are partially self insured. For instance, they might be responsible for the first $100,000 for any payments made and would have insurance for any amount over their self insured limit. Dealing with self insured defendants is different than dealing with an insurance company. You should discuss with your lawyer how a self insured defendant might effect the settlement of your case.

Please understand....

Proving the existence of an unsafe condition and who is responsible, as well as the other issues I have identified is extremely dependent upon the specific facts of your case. Any lawyer will tell you a slight change in the facts in any of these areas of proof will result in a big difference in how your case is resolved.

It is human nature to want to discuss and compare your case with someone else who might have had what seems to be a similar injury or occurrence. I would urge you not to do this! You will never understand all of the facts of their case. It becomes a big mistake to compare how your case will turn out as compared to a friend's case. This is true in any injury claim, but doubly so in an injury caused by a fall.

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