Onondaga County's county seat is Syracuse, and the county has a total area of 806 square miles. Highways that may be used to travel to and through Onondaga County include I-81, I-481, I-90, I-690, and U.S. Routes 11 and 20. Catastrophic injuries, such as amputations, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord damage, and broken bones, can be sustained due to the negligent conduct of others. If you suffer these types of injuries, you may need long-term medical care and rehabilitation. You may need to hire someone to take care of certain daily tasks that you used to do yourself. You may need to find a new line of work, or you may never be able to work again. However, you can retain an Onondaga County personal injury lawyer at DeFrancisco & Falgiatano to recover the damages that you have sustained as a result of someone else's negligence.
Taking Legal Action Through a Personal Injury ClaimMost often, accidents are due to negligence, rather than intentional misconduct. If you are trying to recover damages from someone else based on a negligence cause of action, you will need to establish that the defendant had a duty to use a certain level of care, the defendant fell short of this standard, and this failure caused your injuries and related costs and losses. Whether an act or omission is a breach of duty depends on the circumstances under which the accident took place. Under certain circumstances, other elements must also be proven, or other parties must be brought into the lawsuit to share liability.
For example, if you are injured in a truck accident, a personal injury attorney in Onondaga County will probably need to prove that the truck driver's breach of the duty to use reasonable care caused your injuries. This breach could be a result of not following hours of service rules and driving while fatigued, failing to drive at an appropriate speed given weather conditions, speeding, overloading the truck, taking a curve too fast, or driving drunk.
Truck accidents often result in catastrophic injuries to multiple people, which means that there are many claims against one insurance policy. It is easy to hit the policy limits when catastrophic injuries are sustained. Accordingly, we could also look at whether the trucking company, a third-party loader, a repair shop, or a manufacturer was negligent or should share liability under another theory. For example, if a trucking company failed to conduct the background checks that it is required to conduct before hiring a truck driver and therefore missed a truck driver's past DUIs, and the truck driver then injures people in a drunk driving accident, it may be possible to hold the trucking company liable for negligent hiring. Similarly, if there is a defective component that caused a truck accident, an Onondaga County personal injury attorney can sue the truck or truck part manufacturer under a product liability theory.
Defendants often search for ways in which to blame a plaintiff for contributing to or causing the accident. Under a theory of comparative negligence, the jury will evaluate the damages and also assign percentages of fault to each of the parties determined to be at fault. As a plaintiff, your damages will be reduced in proportion to your own percentage of fault. For example, if the jury decides that your damages are $500,000, but you were 50% responsible, and the defendant was 50% responsible, you can recover $250,000 from the defendant.
If you can establish liability, you may be able to recover economic and noneconomic losses arising from your injuries. Economic losses are tangible, often documented losses, such as medical expenses, rehabilitation, therapy, out-of-pocket costs, replacement services (like housekeeping), and property damage. Noneconomic losses are intangible losses that the jury believes would naturally flow from the kinds of injuries that you suffered. They may include pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment, and loss of consortium.
Discuss Your Case with a Personal Injury Lawyer in Onondaga CountyIf you were injured in a car accident, a truck crash, a slip and fall, an incident of medical malpractice, or another accident in Onondaga County, you should consult an experienced personal injury attorney. Call DeFrancisco & Falgiatano at 833-200-2000 or contact us via our online form.