Personal Injury and Criminal Defense: Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently asked questions

Below, we provide answers to questions that we hear frequently from our clients about the personal injury and criminal defense processes.

The Florida personal injury lawyers at LMD Injury Lawyers, Accident Injury Attorneys, Accident Injury Lawyers understand that hiring an attorney amid other expenses and impacts of your injury may seem overwhelming to many. How would you afford a retainer? How do you know how much experience the attorney you want to hire has with cases similar to yours? Personal injury attorneys spend years obtaining the education and training to provide quality services to their clients. The legal system involves complex rules and processes that require a significant amount of time to learn. People who don’t have this education and training likely won’t know how the legal system works, yet courts expect individuals who represent themselves to know as much as an attorney.

According to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the damages you recover through a personal injury settlement do not constitute taxable income. However, if you receive punitive damages, the IRS does consider that compensation is taxable income and thus will tax those damages. Courts award punitive damages to punish a defendant for particularly egregious action and to discourage similar behavior in the future, not as compensation for the expenses and impacts of your injury but as a financial consequence for particularly wanton recklessness on behalf of the defendant. Because the compensation does not stem directly from your injuries, the IRS considers it as taxable income.

A witness deposition serves as a valuable evidence-gathering tool. After you file your claim in court, the case will enter the discovery phase of litigation. During this phase, attorneys for each side have the opportunity to question witnesses, both orally and in writing, in sworn testimony that occurs outside the courtroom. Witness depositions rarely prove admissible in court; they assist attorneys in building their cases. Either side can request to depose witnesses.

Because your husband’s death meets Florida’s serious injury threshold, you may bypass the PIP process and seek compensation directly from the at-fault party’s liability insurance carrier. The serious injury threshold includes injuries that result in a significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function or another permanent injury, including permanent scarring and disfigurement or death. While you don’t have to file a claim against your PIP policy before seeking compensation through the courts, you should know that Florida PIP policies provide a $5,000 death benefit if you or anyone in your household dies in a car accident. In addition to your PIP claim, you can seek compensation through a wrongful death claim.

A slip and fall is a type of premises liability claim. You can prove your claim by establishing that:
  • A hazard existed on property that the at-fault party owned, possessed, or controlled.
  • The at-fault party knew or had reason to know that the hazard existed.
  • The at-fault party negligently failed to mitigate the hazard and failed to warn guests of its existence.
  • The hazard caused your accident, resulting in an injury and associated expenses and impacts.

Time and expense constitute the main benefits of the settlement process. Litigation often proves expensive, and you generally won’t receive the compensation until months or even years after the accident occurred. This may feel like a long time to wait for compensation when you have suffered injuries and cannot work or pay for the expenses of life.

Without knowing all of the details of your case, we cannot say for sure if you qualify to file a claim. However, assaults in a parking lot can result in a negligent security claim. Negligent security is a type of premises liability complaint in which the property owner, manager, or possessor fails to take reasonable measures to protect guests from crime known to occur in the area. For example, a nightclub will often hire bouncers and outdoor security guards to protect guests from hazards that often arise in establishments where groups of people gather together and consume alcohol.

Individuals prove liability in personal injury cases by showing the elements of negligence. These elements include:
  • The at-fault party owed you a duty of care. The duty of care refers to the actions a reasonable person would take in a given set of circumstances to avoid causing injury to someone else.
  • The at-fault party breached the duty of care. The at-fault party took an action contrary to what a reasonable person would have done in similar circumstances.
  • The breach caused the accident, which resulted in your injury and caused you to incur associated financial and psychological costs.

Anyone whose careless or reckless actions contributed to or caused the accident can bear liability. Other possible sources of liability in a car accident, besides the at-fault driver, include:
  • Other roadway users who were not involved in the accident but whose actions led to it. An example may include if one driver cuts off another driver, causing the second driver to swerve to avoid an accident and wind up colliding with another vehicle instead.
  • A business establishment, such as a liquor store or restaurant, knowingly furnished alcohol to a driver who was habitually addicted or under 21, and that driver subsequently became intoxicated and caused a drunk driving accident.
  • The parents of an individual who is under the age of 21 and caused an accident.
  • The owner of the at-fault party’s vehicle, if different than the driver if the owner knowingly allowed a driver who was unsafe or underage to operate the vehicle.

In a personal injury case, damages refer to compensation that the at-fault party’s insurance provider legally must pay because of the expenses and impacts of the injury. There are two types of compensatory damages, which we discuss further below:
  • Economic damages refers to compensation you can obtain for the expenses you incurred as a result of the accident and your injury. Examples of the types of economic damages commonly claimed in personal injury cases include medical expenses, lost wages, loss of future earning capacity, and property damage, such as the cost of repairing or replacing the vehicle from the accident if your injuries resulted in a car accident.
  • Non-economic damages refer to the compensation you can obtain for the quality-of-life impacts you have incurred as a result of your injury. Examples of commonly claimed non-economic damages include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of the enjoyment of life, or loss of consortium.

Not necessarily. Most personal injury claims are resolved without ever seeing the inside of the courtroom. That said, however, beware of an attorney who only resolves cases through pre suit settlements. This can indicate a lack of experience or a lack of resources to afford the expense of litigation. The legal team at LMD Injury Lawyers, Accident Injury Attorneys, Accident Injury Lawyers can negotiate aggressively with insurance companies and represent injured individuals in court. We will never pressure you to accept a lower settlement just to say we had a positive outcome but will instead continue fighting for your right to the maximum amount of compensation available for you in your case. If your case goes to court, rest assured that your attorney will ensure you remain completely informed and prepared for the experience.

There really is no such thing. Legal Coverage means that you have PIP (Personal Injury Protection) coverage and at least 10,000.00 in property damage coverage to pay for property damage that you cause. When insurance agents use the term full coverage that is what they mean. That is not good coverage! Good, complete coverage means you have plenty of Liability Insurance to financially protect you if you are at fault and Uninsured/Underinsured motorist coverage which protects you or your occupants should you be in an accident with a person that does not have insurance or not enough coverage. This is very common in West Central Florida.

This is America, and in our capitalistic country insurance companies can raise your rates at any time for any reason but most of the time insurance companies will not raise your rates or cancel your insurance if you make a PIP claim.

Answer is sometimes. But that is no reason to not make a claim. If you have Uninsured Motorist and feel as if you cannot make a claim, cancel this coverage because paying for something you will never utilize makes no sense.

It really depends on the state and jurisdiction. In Florida, our court system is horribly overburdened because of a shortage of courtrooms and judges. It simply takes a long time to get a trial date.

Uninsured Motorist coverage costs extra and it simply is a contract between the owner of the policy and the particular insurance company that states coverage exists in the event that an accident occurs and the other party does not have any or enough coverage to cover the loss. The limits are what a particular person pays for. If a person pays for 100,000 dollars in coverage and is killed in the accident, the insurance company pays 100,000. But if the accident involved a sprained finger, the insurance company would pay the fair value of a sprained finger, not 100,000.
Contact LMD Injury Lawyers for slip and fall accident legal assistance in Inverness.

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