Denver Personal Injury Attorneys | The Gold Law Firm

Serious and occasionally catastrophic personal injuries result in many different ways. Common causes are traffic accidents, careless mistakes made during routine medical procedures, dog attacks, slip and fall accidents caused by unsafe property conditions, defective or poorly designed products, and many other types of causes that may surprise you. It’s a large problem in the United States, in fact, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, roughly 31 million people each year are injured seriously enough to require medical attention. If you or a loved one have been seriously injured, it is important to contact our Denver personal injury attorneys for a free consultation right away, so that you can learn what your legal options are, and how best to move forward in such a way as to safeguard your future, and the future of your family.

Personal Injury Lawsuits

People who have been injured due to the negligence of another person, or an organization, are eligible to file a personal injury lawsuit in order to seek compensation for their injuries, and the often detrimental effects those injuries may have on their quality of life. Injuries may be physical or emotional, and often effect not only the life of the injured party, but the lives of their family members as well.

Serious injuries can render a person unable to work and provide for their families, and usually require extensive medical treatments, resulting in expensive medical bills. If the injured party is unable to work, they’ll be unable to pay those bills, and the result can be financial ruin. Simply put, the careless, shortsighted or negligent actions of some, shouldn’t ruin the lives of innocent people. A personal injury lawsuit is meant to right the inherent injustice of this situation by determining who is responsible for causing the injury, and requiring them to financially compensate the injured party for their losses.

Compensation and Damages

Compensation, also referred to as damages, is a dollar amount paid to an injured person by the negligent party responsible for the injury, usually through the responsible party’s insurance company. It is made as an effort to make the life of the injured party whole again, and provide for their future expenses in the case that they are unable to work. While what can be considered compensatory damages varies throughout the country, state to state, in Colorado, they can include:

• Permanent disability or disfigurement
• Disruption of family relationships
• Pain and suffering
• Past, current, and future medical expenses
• Property damage
• Lost income and lost earning capacity

In Colorado, punitive damages, or damages that exceed simple compensation for the injury and are meant to punish the defendant, have certain restrictions. First, it must be demonstrated that the actions of the negligent party were especially egregious or intentional. Also, the amount of punitive damages cannot exceed the compensatory damages in most cases. However, if the behavior initially warranting punitive damages continues over the course of the trial, punitive damages up to three times the amount of the compensatory damages may be awarded by the court.

In Colorado, non-economic damages in medical malpractice suits are restricted to $300,000.

Proving Negligence

Integral to most types of personal injury cases is the ability to prove negligence. This doesn’t mean that you have to show the defendant was engaging in intentional wrong-doing, but instead that they neglected to exercise reasonable care, and that negligence was responsible for the injured party’s injuries.

Colorado state operates under ‘modified comparative negligence’ law, which has important consequences when trying to determine fault in an accident. Under modified comparative negligence law, if the injured party’s actions, or failure to act, contributed at all to the accident, they can be held partially accountable for their own injuries. If they are found to be less than half responsible for the actions that caused the accident, the other party responsible for the injuries can be held liable for the portion of damages equal to their portion of fault.

In some instances, especially in regards to product liability cases where there may be multiple manufacturers involved in the creation of a dangerous or faulty product, there may be more than one party responsible for the injuries incurred.

Statute of Limitations

Each state puts a time limit on how many years after an incident an injured party can file a personal injury lawsuit. In Colorado, the statute of limitations is two years for most cases, though there are particular circumstances that can affect when this time period starts, therefore, some lawsuits will have a longer or shorter amount of time.

Contact Our Experienced Denver Personal Injury Lawyers

If you or someone you love has been injured, you may not know where to turn for help. Our experienced, and dedicated personal injury lawyers can help you recover the money you need to heal, and to help put your life back on track. Contact the Gold Law Firm today for a free consultation by calling (303) 694-4653, or by filling out the contact form on this page. It’s a free, no-pressure consultation where you’ll be able to tell us about what your situation is, and we’ll be able to let you know if we can help. In most cases, we work on a contingency fee basis, which means if we are unable to recover compensation for you, you won’t have to pay us anything. Call today.