New Haven may be one of the best places in Connecticut to get injured or fall ill; it may even be one of the best in the country. With faster-than-average ambulance response times and world-renowned medical care from the likes of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, you will be in good hands in the event of a car crash or other accidental injury.
Unfortunately, there will always be a bill to pay for such exceptional service and care, as many injured in New Haven County have discovered. Unfortunately, the high quality of care often comes at a high cost, and those big bills land on top of limited resources as you may be unable to work for some time or even indefinitely.
Fortunately, you will also be in good hands in New Haven when it comes to recovering your costs in the form of personal injury compensation. This is thanks to the hard work of local personal injury lawyers like Jack O’Donnell, who fight hard to ensure insurance companies pay for the hospital bills and other costs.
Under Connecticut law, a personal injury claim can be used to recover the costs and losses from an injury from the person, institution or company that caused it. But only under certain conditions.
In order for your claim to be valid, the injuries must have been the result of someone else’s negligence. This means that they must have done something wrong, or failed to do something they knew they should, or had taken on the responsibility of doing. For example
There are any number of ways to get injured in New Haven, and who is responsible is not always clear. As a result, if you are injured, you should always reach out to an experienced personal injury lawyer to see if you have a valid claim and to figure out who to sue for compensation for the damages you suffered.
One of the main reasons why personal injury attorneys like Jack O’Donnell are so essential in New Haven is that insurance companies like to deprive accident and injury victims of the full extent of their compensation. They will propose settlements that include only a fracture of the compensation you have a right to.
Perhaps the most obvious type of “damages” suffered in an accident are the medical bills you receive for costs connected to the injury and its treatment. This could include, for example:
Given how long it can take to fully recover and for a doctor to determine that you have improved as much as possible, it can take months, or even a year, for the full extent of your injury and medical costs to be known.
If you are having trouble paying for this medical care during that time, you can speak with your personal injury lawyer about working with a doctor “on lien.” This means they accept to work on the condition that you pay them later out of the final personal injury settlement.
Medical damages are just one type of what are called specific damages. These are all direct and indirect monetary costs or losses. In addition to your hospital bills, specific damages can include:
These can be extremely consequential, especially for severe injuries.
The final type of costs or harm you can suffer is much harder to measure, and these are called general damages as a result. This category is for more abstract but no less important damages like:
Even ordinary day-to-day activities, has value to you and the quality of the life you live. Becoming unable to do something or enjoy it is a real burden and cost that deserves compensation just as much as the fancy New Haven hospital treatments.
These types of damages are sometimes the hardest to demonstrate but can also be some of the most impactful on the size of your personal injury settlement. This is why insurance companies are often reluctant to acknowledge or pay them. It is also one of the many reasons you need to work with a personal injury lawyer with experience handling complex compensation and settlements.
With the cost of healthcare going up seemingly everywhere, many in Connecticut might be tempted to avoid a visit to a doctor after an accident. But even if you feel fine after getting run off the road on your bike or rear-ended in traffic on I-95, it is crucial that you see a doctor as soon as possible.
Their report of your injuries and symptoms will be vital to ensuring compensation later because you can only collect on injuries you can demonstrate that came from that accident.
At the same time, you should contact a personal injury lawyer to start building your claim as soon as you can to ensure you do nothing that will cost you a chance at the compensation you need to cover those costs. Someone like Jack O’Donnell, who has 40 years of experience fighting for the rights of injured accident victims and winning.
Like a doctor on lien, personal injury lawyers know your finances are delicate and work on a contingency basis. They take on the risk so that you do not have to; if they cannot win a favorable settlement or court verdict, they don't get paid.
If you have had the misfortune to be injured, you at least got lucky it was in New Haven. But after benefiting from the excellent medical care and seeing the bill, your next call should be to a personal injury lawyer.
The sooner you pick up the phone and call (203) 787-8603 or text (203) 680-9848, the sooner you can book a free consultation and get started on your personal injury claim with New Haven lawyer Jack O’Donnell.