Sumter, SC Personal Injury Lawyers

Injuries can alter your life, whether for a short while during your recovery or in the form of permanent disabilities. If you were injured in an accident and faced serious injuries, you could be entitled to compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and other effects on your life.

For help with an injury case, you should always work with a personal injury attorney. Your Sumter, SC personal injury lawyers can work to get you the compensation you need no matter what kind of injury you face. Our firm fights to hold the responsible parties liable and get you the justice you deserve.

For help with an injury claim, contact our personal injury attorneys at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers. For a free case review, call us today at (803) 451-4000.

When to Contact an Attorney About a Personal Injury in Sumter, SC

The best time to contact an attorney about a personal injury claim is hard to say, as it may vary from person to person. Some people need time to recover from their injuries and think about their legal options before making a decision. Other people might know what they want right away and want to get started immediately. Whatever the case may be, you must file your case within the time set by the statute of limitations.

The statute of limitations, according to S.C. Code Ann. § 15-3-530(5), allows personal injury plaintiffs only 3 years to file their claims in court. This limitation period begins on the date of the accident that caused your injuries, so time is truly of the essence. Remember, if you cannot file your case within the limitation period, you may lose your right to bring the cause of action, and you might never get the compensation you need.

Under special circumstances, plaintiffs who are running out of time or have already exceeded the limitation period might gain extra time to prepare by having the statute of limitations tolled. Tolling allows our personal injury attorneys to pause the clock on your case, and you might have more time than you first thought.

Common tolling options include plaintiffs who are minors and those who are under a “legal disability.” According to § 15-3-40, a minor plaintiff may toll the statute of limitations until they are 18. This means the 3-year limitation period would not begin until the plaintiff is 18, giving them until age 21 to file their case. Similarly, plaintiffs who were under a legal disability at the time of the accident may also have the statute tolled. A legal disability may be a mental condition that prevents a person from understanding their legal rights and taking legal action independently. The statute may be tolled until the disability ceases, but not for more than 5 years.

Getting Compensation After an Accident in Sumter, SC

If you were hurt in an accident, you might not know what steps to take next to get compensation. After receiving treatment and racking up expensive medical bills, you may be left with multiple options to get those costs and other expenses paid. But it is often far from clear what route to compensation will be best. Our Sumter, SC personal injury lawyers can advise you of your options and help you choose the right path based on the specifics of your injury case.

Insurance Claims

In some cases, insurance can get you the damages you need quickly. However, it is important to always be wary of insurance companies and how they value your injuries. Even when filing a claim with your own insurance company, you could be misled and pushed into a low settlement that does not cover your needs.

Insurance is one of the most common ways to get compensation, especially for car accidents, injuries at someone’s home, or injuries in a store or business. Damages can often be paid quickly since you do not have to go to court to get damages paid. However, insurance companies often work to protect their bottom line. This means undercutting damages or excluding certain areas of compensation from your claim. When you file a claim with your own insurance company, out-of-pocket payments for deductibles are common.

Talk to an attorney before admitting anything to an insurance company or accepting any compensation from them. In many cases, our Sumter personal injury attorneys can negotiate for higher settlements by negotiating your case with the insurance company.

Lawsuits

When filing a lawsuit, you will need to go to court and prove your case before a judge or jury to get the damages you claimed. However, this process is decided by a neutral judge or jury rather than the insurance company. The judge and jury also decide the amount you ultimately receive, making this a fairer system in many cases.

If negotiations with the insurance company break down, we may have no choice but to take your case to court to get compensation. This means gathering evidence to build a strong case and presenting it to the jury. However, many cases are still settled before going to trial.

Settlement

The insurance company usually pays a settlement, so this is not much different than the negotiation and ultimate settlement you can get through an insurance claim. If there is no insurance company involved and the defendant is paying out of pocket, your settlement might look a bit different.

Regardless, most injury cases are ultimately settled one way or another. If your lawsuit is progressing through the court system, you can still negotiate with the defendant and their lawyers on the side. If you can reach a satisfactory agreement on damages before (or even during) trial, your case can settle instead of going before the judge or jury. This saves both parties time and money and often gets victims the money they need faster.

However, settlement sometimes means giving up some portion of your claim to convince the defendant to settle. This is unacceptable in some cases, and the case might be compensated more fully by going to trial. Talk to a lawyer about any settlement offers before accepting because a settlement usually blocks you from claiming additional damages later.

What Your Damages Are Worth in a Sumter, SC Personal Injury Case

Your damages might be worth far more compensation than you might think. People sometimes undervalue their damages or overlook certain injuries and costs, costing them compensation. A skilled lawyer can identify all your damages and accurately determine how much financial compensation they are worth. To begin our calculations, we should examine your economic and non-economic damages.

Non-Economic Damages

Many injuries and losses are unrelated to monetary costs. In fact, many injuries do not come with any sort of price tag. Instead, they may take an emotional or psychological toll on your life and well-being. As such, non-economic damages are often not proven with evidence of   but with evidence of how your life has been altered since the accident.

Common non-economic damages include physical pain and emotional or mental suffering. Accidents are often painful and traumatic. You might be recovering from very painful physical injuries, and the medical treatment might also be uncomfortable. If the accident was particularly severe, you might also have to come to terms with certain long-term complications, like limitations on your mobility or even permanent disabilities. Even if you do not suffer any long-term complications, you might still deal with severe emotional distress if the accident was frightening and traumatic.

Economic Damages

When people think of legal claims after an accident, they often think of economic damages. These damages are directly related to the financial costs you incur as a result of an accident. Our personal injury attorneys may help you prove these damages with records of costs, like receipts, bills, credit card statements, and other financial records.

One of the biggest factors in many plaintiffs’ economic damages claims is medical costs. Whether you sustained serious or relatively minor physical injuries, you should go to a hospital as soon as possible. Unfortunately, medical care tends to be very expensive, even for the treatment of minor injuries. As such, medical bills tend to make up a large portion of a plaintiff’s damages.

We should also think about the cost of property damages. For example, replacing a vehicle after a car accident or losing personal items in another accident might be expensive. Even the loss of little things might add up to a significant sum.

If you are so badly injured that returning to work is not possible for a while, we should add your lost income and wages to your claim for economic damages. Not only can we claim the income you have already lost, but we can also estimate and claim income you might continue to lose after the case is complete.

Types of Personal Injury Cases We Handle in Sumter, SC

People are injured in several common ways. Some of the most common personal injury cases involve exactly what you might suspect, while others might be surprising. However your injury took place, our Sumter personal injury lawyers can work to hold the responsible parties accountable and get you the damages you need.

Auto Accidents

Car crashes and truck accidents are some of the most common ways that people receive serious injuries. If another driver hit you – whether you were in a car, on foot, or riding a bike – you may be entitled to sue them for the injuries they caused you. If you were hit by a commercial driver, such as a truck driver, then you might also be entitled to file a claim against the company the driver works for.

Premises Liability Injuries

Accidents on someone else’s property can happen in many ways. Slip and fall accidents are the most common, but electrocution, fires, and even dog bite injuries could also fall into this category. Filing a claim against a homeowner or business owner can get you the compensation you deserve.

Medical Malpractice

Being injured by a doctor who was supposed to take care of you can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Our Sumter personal injury lawyers can handle all sorts of medical malpractice cases, including those involving surgical mistakes, foreign objects left in the body, misdiagnosis, medication errors, and more.

What Kind of Evidence is Needed for a Personal Injury Case in Sumter, SC?

To support your claims for damages, we need evidence showing how the defendant negligently caused the accident. Exactly how we go about this will depend on the unique circumstances and facts surrounding your case.

Medical Records and Evaluations

A big part of our evidentiary arsenal might be your medical records. Your injuries are at the heart of the case, and we must prove the extent of your injuries, including the costs of medical care. In some cases, injuries are complicated and hard to explain. In others, plaintiffs might fully recover from their injuries by the time they are in front of a jury, and records of injuries might be all we have to prove them. We may also need your doctor or another medical expert to review the records and testify about what they mean.

Testimony

Testimony from witnesses may also be crucial to your case’s success. Eyewitnesses who were present when the accident happened might have seen things that you missed. Maybe a driver in a car behind you saw how the defendant crashed into you. If they can testify in court, their testimony may strengthen your claims. We should also be prepared to have you testify. There are certain things only you can explain, such as how the accident and your injuries have changed your life.

Photographic Evidence and Videos

It is common for injured victims to take some pictures or record videos immediately after an accident. This is not only normal but encouraged in car accident cases where insurance companies often want to see photos as proof of the crash. However, taking pictures may be useful in other kinds of cases, too. The scene of an accident often contains lots of evidence and details that are lost once the scene is cleared away. Your pictures might be all that remains, and they might contain important details.

Speak to Our Sumter, SC Personal Injury Attorneys About Your Legal Claims Now

For help getting the compensation you need, call (803) 451-4000 for a free case evaluation with our personal injury attorneys at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers.