Do I have a case? A Beaver County Lawyer's information on case evaluation

Do you have a case? The lawyerly answer I can give you is "it depends."

Your right to make a claim or sue someone else for injuries you sustain in a car or other accident depends initially on who caused the accident.   If you cause an accident, you cannot make a claim against someone else for your injuries. This may seem obvious, but I've had people call me to see if they could make a claim for injuries they sustained because of their own negligence.

Should someone else cause injuries to you, you may be able to make a claim for damages against that person. I say that you may be able to make a claim against the other person because there are many factors to consider when determining whether or not you can make a claim.

First, the person who caused your injuries must have been negligent in causing the accident. Suppose you are driving your car through an intersection and another car fails to stop for a red light and they hit your car.  If they failed to stop for a red light then they were negligent and a claim can be made. If they failed to stop for the red light because they suffered a medical condition that was completely unforeseeable then they may not have been negligent.  if you and the other person both had a green light because of a traffic light malfunction then the other driver probably was not negligent and a claim against the local township or PennDot will have to be considered.

If you slip or fall on someone else's property because that person did not maintain their property in a safe manner and you may be able to make a claim for damages. Suppose for example that you fall due to snow or ice in a parking lot that had not been cleared for several days. You probably can make a claim for damages. Suppose instead that you fall due to snow on a sidewalk but your fall occurred in the middle of a snow storm. The law does not require a person to clear the sidewalk in the middle of a blizzard or ice storm so you may not be able to maintain a claim for your fall down injuries.

Another issue to be considered is the amount of insurance coverage available through the person who caused your injury.  If the person has no insurance and no assets, you can make a claim and you can win your claim, but what will it be worth?  There will be no money to collect for your injuries and pursuing the claim may simply be a waste of time.

What you should understand about the above examples is that when I look at a case, I have to look at all of the facts of the case to determine whether or not we can make a claim. I talk to clients often about cases where the person was injured, but we cannot make the claim because of the circumstances of the injury. All cases are different and every case is worth talking about to see if we have a chance to make your case a successful one.