What do you do when it’s not your fault? Maybe you’ve found yourself in a situation where you’ve been in an accident caused by another person. Maybe you have been unsure of what to do. I’ve been in that situation before as well, and now that I work at Pearson Law Firm I quickly learned what I should have done so many years ago. I want to share my story with you.
Depending on the facts, words can have different meanings, with different implications in our lives. Here is an example: A motorcycle policeman is on duty and working to protect the community when he is rear-ended by a drunk driver. There are serious injuries and now a key question: Was this an accident?
I grew up in a time when “being a girl” was enough to keep you out of certain professions. As a young child, I greatly admired a local doctor who had figured out how to get me healthy after long bouts with sore throats and resulting infections. I just thought, “Wow, that’s what I want to do when I grow up...be a doctor...figure things out and help kids like me”. Well, I was roundly discouraged when the grown ups in my life educated me about my chances. After all, I was a “girl”.
I wrote most of this on a Memorial Day to acknowledge my experience as a Vietnam Marine Corps infantry veteran who attended a “Peace Bridge” event to honor veterans and troops at Fort Lewis, in this, my home state of Washington, where I was born and raised.
Our justice system can be complicated as it involves multiple levels of Courts with different levels of authority. The Cunningham case was first dismissed by the King County Superior Court, then appealed to Division 1 of the Court of Appeals.
Although the overview of liability, causation, and damages (and burden of proof) is a helpful way to understand personal injury claims, it is also true that these legal distinctions do not address or anticipate the evolving roles of insurance companies.
First...What is a personal injury claim? I’d like to break it down into three specific elements. Wikipedia would simply tell you “personal injury is a legal term for an injury to the body, mind or emotions, as opposed to an injury to property.”
