If you have been injured in an accident, you have a difficult enough time getting through the pain and difficulty of that injury. Once you are finally getting out from under it, you may decide that you need to hold the person who was negligent and thus caused the accident accountable for your injuries and sue them. However, before you do that, you will want to become educated about the personal injury laws in West Virginia and how they apply to you.
The fact is that the medical treatment that you need for your personal injury may be extremely expensive and it won’t take a long time before you are facing insurmountable bills and other expenses that are related to your injury. If you are unable to work as you did before the injury, the money to take care of your expenses has to come from somewhere. Then there is the emotional pain and suffering that you have also had to endure since you got hurt.
You will try to go after what you deserve
You may hesitate to go after the person who is responsible for your injury because it is not an easy thing to do and you feel badly about it, but you need to survive yourself and in order to do that, you need money to pay your expenses. That is the reality. If you go after the responsible person through a lawsuit and they are found legally responsible, they will have to pay you financial damages as well as paying because your injury has impacted your life in a profound manner.
Although the core personal injury laws are similar across the United States, there are some smaller differences from state to state. So, what are those differences in West Virginia? In Virginia, by definition, personal injury is defined as bodily harm that was caused by one person to another. The definition does not include damage to property. If you wish to pursue a lawsuit to be awarded damages for property, that case will be tried in a civil court. Also, if your injuries were caused by the other person committing a crime, that case will be tried in a criminal court.
What are the different types of personal injuries?
There are several different types of personal injuries and if you have an injury that falls into one of those categories, you have grounds to sue that person. They are:
- Intentional injuries: Examples of these injuries are battery and assault. If a person strikes you, even without the intent to injure you, they may be held responsible.
- Negligent and reckless injuries: These are accidental injuries that may have been prevented if the other person had been more careful.
- Strict liability injuries: These are injuries where the person causing the injury acted responsibly but the injury that they caused still makes them responsible to pay. Some examples are dog bites and product defects.
Professional help
If you have sustained a personal injury because of another person’s negligence, no matter how that happened, you may wish to sue them for damages. This is where an experienced West Virginia person injury lawyer can really make a difference in the outcome of your case. You need and deserve compensation so that you can cover all of your expenses and start to live your life again. Your lawyer can help you to protect your rights and to get back to a place where you can look forward to a bright future again.
