If you’re suing someone, you’re trying to get money from them because you allege that they harmed you in some way. Due to their actions, you’re asserting that they injured you or made you sick. Others times, someone’s inaction might cause an injury or illness.
In these situations, the legal system calls the money you can potentially collect “damages.” You presumably want to get as much in damages as you can from the person or company you allege harmed you.
You might use that money to pay for medical bills or to make up for lost wages. You may want to collect cash for both economic and noneconomic losses.
In this article, we’ll discuss the steps you must never skip if you’re going to collect the damages you feel the person or business entity you’re suing owes you.
You might want to sue someone because they drove drunk and plowed into your car. That happens frequently in many states. For example, a Utah collision kills someone every 33 hours, and often, alcohol plays a part in these situations.
Maybe you’ll sue a doctor who operated on the wrong body part or gave you the wrong prescription. Medical malpractice cases can pay off nicely in some instances, especially if the doctor caused you any permanent damage. You might also need to hire a lawyer if you decide you’re filing a premises liability lawsuit or if a dog bit you and you want to sue the animal’s owner.
No matter why you plan to sue the person or company that you think harmed you, though, you need to do your due diligence and hire a lawyer who you feel has the skill set you need. If you’re going to collect damages, you probably can’t do it on your own. You simply don’t have the legal background to know what steps to take to get you a satisfactory conclusion of your lawsuit.
You can figure out whether you’re considering a competent lawyer by seeing what the feedback looks like for them online. If you see that they have many five-star reviews from former clients, that should make you feel more confident that this individual should represent you. You also want to see if they have represented clients in very similar situations to yours.
Once you feel that you’ve found a lawyer who can adequately represent you, talk to them about the payment structure you’re going to use before you take things any further. In almost all cases, if you’re going to sue a person or business entity, you will want to have a contingency payment plan in place with your lawyer.
This structure works well because if your lawyer doesn’t win the case for you or doesn’t induce a settlement offer that you take, you will not have to pay them anything. Presumably, that’s something you want. If you pay your lawyer and they don’t win, you’ll end up with less money than you had before, and nobody wants that.
To give yourself the best chance of collecting damages, you should also make sure that you are filing the lawsuit within the timeframe that the law allows. In every state, you have a limited amount of time after the accident or incident that hurt you or made you sick to file your lawsuit. If you don’t get the process moving within that time period, you can’t get any financial compensation from the person or business entity that you allege harmed you.
Your lawyer should know that timeframe and tell you about it. They will certainly want to ask you about the date when the incident occurred. Have that information ready. If you’re not sure about the date, try to identify it as closely as possible.
You will next need to have your lawyer notify the person or business entity that you’re suing. That way, they can have the chance to hire their own legal counsel.
You can tell your lawyer to file the right paperwork to get things moving. They should know how to do that if they have prior experience with these kinds of cases. If you hired a competent lawyer, they won’t make any costly mistakes that might hurt your case.
While you’re getting ready to potentially make a court appearance, assuming the defendant doesn’t want to offer you a settlement, you and your lawyer’s investigator should uncover as much evidence as possible that you can use at trial. If you hired a lawyer who works for a large, prestigious law firm, they might even have an entire investigative team who can look into your case.
They might produce a police report of the incident that harmed you, if one exists. They may get medical records that indicate what someone did that hurt you or made you sick.
The investigative team can also find any eyewitnesses if someone saw the incident that hurt you or made you ill. If they can’t find any eyewitnesses, then they might find an expert witness who can help your cause. That’s not always possible, but it can sometimes aid your quest for damages.
If you reach the point in the trial where you must take the stand before the defendant caves and offers you a settlement, then you can try to get the jury on your side with some compelling testimony. You must tell the truth, since you’re under oath, but you can make sure they understand the pain and suffering that you went through.
If you do all these things, then you should collect some damages. Hopefully, you will get enough to feel that you got justice.
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