Beverly, MA Personal Injury Lawyer
Accidents that lead to serious injuries can leave you out of work and without the income to pay for your everyday needs, let alone the expensive medical bills you now face. To get help with these bills, you may consider filing an insurance claim. Before filing any type of injury claim, you should have an attorney review your case.
Our Beverly, MA personal injury lawyers help injury victims get compensation for the medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages related to their injuries. Whether you were hurt in a car accident, a workplace accident, or even a slip and fall accident, our attorneys can help you understand what your case is worth and fight to get you the compensation you need.
For a free case review, contact the Beverly personal injury lawyers at the Law Office of John J. Sheehan today. Our phone number is (617) 925-6407.
Types of Personal Injury Cases Our Beverly Personal Injury Lawyers Handle
If you were hurt in any type of accident, our attorneys can help you get compensation. Most accidents that fall under the umbrella of “personal injury” cases involve some form of “negligence” that forms the basis of your legal claim. In a negligence case, you must show that the at-fault party breached some duty that they owed you, and that this breach caused your injuries. However, you can also sue for intentional injuries from assault and battery.
Out Beverly personal injury lawyers handle all of the following types of injury cases:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bike accidents
- Slip and falls
- Other premises liability injuries
- Dangerous and defective product injuries
- Medical malpractice claims
- Boating accidents
- Construction accidents
- Workplace accidents
- Assault and battery
Our lawyers also deal with any sort of injury that causes substantial or permanent injuries like spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries.
If you were injured and you are not sure whether your case qualifies as a personal injury case or not, call our attorneys to find out. “Personal injury” truly is a very broad area of law, and our attorneys can help with any sort of case for physical injuries.
Elements of a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Beverly, MA
As mentioned, a personal injury lawsuit is usually based on “negligence.” Defined simply, negligence occurs when someone does something wrong that leads to an injury. More specifically, there are four elements that must be proved for a negligence case to be successful:
- The defendant owed the victim a legal duty
- The defendant breached that duty by failing to use the proper care or skill required under the specific circumstances
- The breach of duty caused the victim’s injuries
- The victim suffered injuries and other damages that can be compensated in court.
Given these required elements, you cannot file a personal injury case against just anyone. Instead, there usually needs to be some existing relationship between you and the person you are suing. This relationship can be something explicit like a doctor-patient relationship, which comes with plenty of duties the doctor needs to carry out. It can also be something as simple as the relationship between a store owner and a customer or two drivers sharing the road – each of which creates its own duties and requirements.
Proving that someone was at fault for your injuries typically means showing that their actions or inactions actually led to your injuries. This means your injuries cannot be hypothetical or potential – there needs to be an actual injury to sue for. Additionally, if the injury would have been unavoidable, it can be difficult to blame the accident on anyone, and it may just be a true “accident.”
Our Beverly personal injury attorneys can help you gather the evidence needed to prove these elements in your case.
Evidence Needed for a Personal Injury Lawsuit in Beverly, MA
For you to succeed in an insurance claim or a lawsuit, you need to be able to prove that the defendant was at fault. This means you need sufficient evidence to convince a judge or jury that each element of the case was met.
Evidence is usually presented in court through witness testimony. This means that the testimony itself will be incredibly important. Your Beverly, MA personal injury lawyer can typically call you to the stand to explain your side of the story, making you one of the most important witnesses in your own case. Other eyewitnesses to what happened can also be called to present their side of the story, and your attorney can cross-examine any witnesses the defense puts forward.
Other evidence can be presented in court by having a witness explain what the evidence is or interact with it. For example, your Beverly personal injury lawyer can help prove your car accident case by showing you photos of the damage to your vehicle and asking you whether they are an accurate representation of what you saw, and then your lawyer can submit those photos into evidence.
Other evidence comes in the form of videos, documentation, records, and even physical items. Physical items are often difficult to use at trial since they are often repaired or cleaned up at some point between the accident and the court case – or they are simply too large to bring into the courtroom. This is one reason that photos are one of the most common types of evidence used in court.
Other witnesses, called “expert witnesses,” can be used to explain technical and scientific matters to a jury even though they did not actually “witness” your accident or treat your injuries. Hiring these witnesses is vital in many types of cases, especially medical malpractice claims and product defect cases.
Call Our Beverly Personal Injury Attorneys Today
If you were injured in Beverly, MA or the surrounding areas, contact the Law Office of John J. Sheehan for a free case review. Call us at (617) 925-6407.
