Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyers from Siegfried & Jensen

The Las Vegas Strip is teeming with more than the bright lights of casinos, big-name performances and outrageous jackpots. It also plays host to a plethora of incidents that personal injury lawyers stand at the ready to help you address. With personal injury incidents on the rise in and around Las Vegas, familiarize yourself with some of the common injuries and possible outcomes under Nevada law.

What Do Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyers Handle?

Personal injury attorneys can either specialize in a specific aspect of personal injury, or they can handle any and every aspect. The definition of a personal injury is one that occurs to a person’s body and not just property, and said injury is the fault of another party’s negligence. In this instance, negligence does not have to come in the form of an overt act, and can instead occur when someone ignores the warning signs that their actions may cause harm to another.

The most common personal injury cases include:

• Motor vehicle crashes
• Slips, trips and falls
• Medical malpractice
• Workplace accidents
• Dog bites

Most personal injury claims in Las Vegas involve a motor vehicle accident. Negligence in a car accident can occur when the driver who caused it drives in a reckless or unsafe manner, including things such as speeding down Las Vegas Boulevard. running red lights or driving while distracted. While the driver’s intent was not to cause you harm, their behavior in ignoring the law was negligent.

What Does the Law Require for a Claim?

Under Nevada law, a claim for a personal injury must follow a three-prong test that the injured party must prove in order to win.

1. The at-fault party had a duty to protect the person injured. This means that the person responsible, the defendant in a personal injury case, had the responsibility to act in a manner to ensure the safety of you and everyone else like you. In a car accident, this means that the at-fault driver understood that they should adhere to proper driving laws to make sure their actions did not cause harm to those around them.
2. The defendant acted or failed to act reasonably, and caused harm to the injured party as a result. You must show that the responsible party’s action or inaction caused the incident that led to your injuries. In a slip-and-fall incident, for example, a restaurant should ensure that floors are dry at all times to ensure the safety of the public at large.
3. The incident not only resulted in injuries but also financial loss. The defendant’s irresponsible or negligent action caused injury and damages in the form of money you would not have spent had it not been for the inciting incident.

The Burden of Proof in a Personal Injury Case

When you bring a personal injury case against the at-fault party, it is up to your personal injury attorneys to show their negligence caused your harm. This burden of proof falls squarely on you as the plaintiff, and if you cannot give evidence that the defendant was negligent, your case will not go any further.

Types of Evidence in Various Personal Injury Claims

A judge may let your case proceed as long as you first show the negligence of the other party that caused you harm. However, this is just the beginning of what might become a longer civil proceeding that will require you to present even more evidence.

Accident Reports. After a vehicle crash, the police should respond, especially if the accident was severe enough to cause injuries. These crash accident reports become vital pieces of evidence and can go a long way in proving who was at fault in an accident. The police will want to gather evidence to include in the report, including things like:

• Eyewitness accounts from people who were not involved
• Camera footage in and around the scene
• Photos and videos of the vehicles after the crash
• License, registration and insurance information from all drivers
• Measurements from the point of impact to where the vehicles came to rest

After getting a full picture of the scene and formulating a reasonable belief based on all the evidence, the police will render their finding of who is at fault. If both parties contributed in some way to the crash, the officer preparing the report may assign one as more responsible than the other. More on comparative negligence below.

Medical Records. The documentation of all injuries is a crucial piece of proving a personal injury case. A Las Vegas personal injury law firm will want to amass all medical data, from the first responders to the emergency room and beyond. But what if you did not get immediate treatment, and only visited a doctor after you started exhibiting symptoms hours or days later? Some injuries come with a delayed onset of symptoms, and as long as you get treatment, those records will prove pertinent in your case.

Financial Evidence. Other than evidence concerning the accident and your injuries, you will want to provide your personal injury attorneys with access to your financial records. You want to show that the negligent behavior of the defendant created a financial deviation in your life. For this, you will want to get all medical bills, savings account transfers, loans and cash-outs you only have because of the accident. You will also want your human resources department to run a record of your days out of work, and whether you got paid for those or not and whether you had to leave your job because of your injuries.

What Does Nevada Law Say About Negligence?

Under the statute, Nevada law accounts for something called comparative negligence. This means that if a party in an accident suffers an injury but is also partly at fault for the incident, they can still recover damages from the other party as long as the defendant holds a majority of negligence. The law goes on to say that the recoverable amount gets reduced by the amount of fault placed on the more injured person.

To break this down, if you and the other driver in a car accident were both found to have done something to contribute to the crash, the police and your insurer will assign a percentage to each of you. Say yours is 30% and the other driver is 70% responsible, meaning the defendant was more negligent than you. When you go to recover damages, you will receive 30% less from the defendant because of your share of the fault.

What Are Damages?

Damages, the financial award that you might receive as a result of your personal injury claim, may fall into three main categories.

Compensatory

Compensatory damages are the most commonly awarded. These are reimbursements of actual money you spent or lost as a result of the incident, including out-of-pocket medical bills and other tangible expenses you incurred. It will also apply to ongoing and future medical care that is the direct result of the personal injury event.

Noncompensatory

On the opposite end of the spectrum are non compensatory damages. This kind of award intends to compensate for intangible loss, most commonly known as pain and suffering. It is the second most awarded damage in a personal injury case. It applies to physical, emotional or mental suffering that is common to the type of experience and injury you sustained only because of the toll the incident took.

Other types of noncompensatory damages include:

• Diminishment of life
• Loss of consortium filed by a spouse
• Permanent impairment
• Disfigurement
• Lost wages, past, present and future

Punitive

The final and hardest damage award to receive in a personal injury case is punitive damages. This category is not something your personal injury attorneys would ask for, but one that the judge or jury would award as a type of punishment for the severity of the negligence exercised by the defendant. For instance, if you sustained your injuries because the defendant ran a red light and struck you while you were crossing Las Vegas Boulevard at a crosswalk, the judge might award you punitive damages.

Under the law, some personal injury cases are subject to damage caps that the court cannot exceed. A plaintiff in a medical malpractice case, for instance, cannot receive more than $350,000 in non compensatory damages. Your Las Vegas personal injury law firm can prepare you for any applicable damage caps, if any, that relate to your case.

Don’t Hesitate To Call Our Personal Injury Lawyers for Help!

The personal injury lawyers and team at Siegfried and Jensen believe that you have the right to receive the appropriate compensation for your loss. Whether that is at the hands of a reckless driver who hit you or because a casino failed to clean up a dangerous spill that led to a fall, you should not have to try and go through the personal injury claim process alone. You have rights, and our team can assert them for you! Contact us now for a no-risk consultation, and see if we have what it takes to help you put this unfortunate incident in the rearview.