Winter Haven, Florida
Winter Haven Personal Injury Lawyers
Winter Haven: 1350 Havendale Blvd NW, Winter Haven, FL 33881
Hiring an attorney to help you with a personal injury claim can be one of the best decisions you make. Our attorneys at Howell & Thornhill, P.A. are experts in personal injury and meet with you face to face. We handle most types of accident claims. When you put our Winter Haven personal injury lawyers to work for you, you can meet with your lawyer and easily communicate about your challenges and hopes.
Contact Howell & Thornhill now. Set up a free consultation. There is nothing to pay. We will answer your questions and help you determine if you have a case. Expect advice from a lawyer directly, not just a “call center” that some firms use.
What Is Personal Injury in Florida?
Personal injury occurs when someone else causes the losses you have due to their negligence. This can include vehicle accidents, medical malpractice, workplace injury, and wrongful death. If someone else owes you a sense of safety, it is critical that you know your rights when you suffer injury and financial loss due to their negligence. Our goal is to help you pursue those losses to the maximum level under the law.
Florida’s personal injury laws have recently been updated, and with those updates come some very important details you must understand if you are planning to file a claim for compensation in the state. Our legal team can provide you with very specific insight into what your rights are.
What Are Personal Injury Incidents in Florida?
While car accidents are some of the most common types of personal injury that occur in the state, there are many other forms. If you are unsure if your case qualifies as a personal injury claim, we suggest seeking out our legal guidance for immediate support and clarification.
Some examples of personal injury cases include:
● Bus accidents
● Premise liability claims
Let us help you determine if you have a case for personal injury. Do not assume that you will receive fair compensation for your losses without the help of an expert.
What You Need to Know About Florida’s No-Fault Laws
Many people do not realize they have the legal right to pursue compensation for their losses after a personal injury case because of the state’s no-fault laws. However, these laws are often misunderstood. They are meant to ensure that a person in an accident is able to obtain adequate medical care. It does not prevent you from seeking fault for additional losses you have suffered. This is often very important in situations where serious injuries have occurred.
The state’s laws allow a claim for suffering if you have one of the following pursuant to Florida Statute 627.737:
● Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function.
● Permanent injury.
● Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement.
● Death.
Do you have a case? Allow our personal injury attorneys in Winter Haven to offer you the insight and guidance you need in these difficult situations. We will work closely with you to ensure your rights are always protected.
Florida Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury
The statute of limitations in Florida for personal injury claims is 2 years. This has recently changed (in 2023), and that means you now have far less time to take legal action to protect your rights. That is critical to understand because you could leave significant compensation on the table that is owed to you.
This means you have two years to file a claim for compensation or seek out legal action in a court of law. If you are approaching that timeframe from the date of your incident, that could put your ability to file a claim at all at risk. Seek out our legal representation immediately. There are some situations where we may be able to help you if your claim has extended beyond this timeframe as well. Do not wait to contact our Winter Haven attorneys.
How Much Is Your Personal Injury Case Worth?
One of the biggest factors many people have when it comes to obtaining compensation for their losses is putting a dollar amount on what they are owed. Our personal injury attorneys in Winter Haven can help with this. We work closely with you to understand what your losses are with the goal of creating a settlement that is comprehensive.
In a personal injury case, you may seek compensation from the responsible party for the value
of your losses. Our goal is to estimate what all types of your losses are while also calculating their value. Some of the factors that play a role in that value include the following:
How Severe Was the Injury?
The type of injury and the severity of it will play a role in what you are owed. Those injuries that result in long-term disability or permanent loss may be worth more than an injury you may recover from fully. The compensation for injuries like the following can be significant:
● Traumatic brain injuries
● Spinal column injuries
● Back and neck injuries
● Broken bones
● Lacerations
● Damage to internal organs
● Burns and other injuries that lead to disfigurement
In addition to these types of physical injuries, we also look at injuries related to your mental health. Many people suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or the onset of mental health conditions like depression and anxiety due to the incident they experienced or the complications that come from it.
What Type of Medical Treatment Was and is Necessary?
Another factor contributing to the injury losses you have is the type of treatment you need. In many cases, emergency medical care is the first step. From there, you may have losses related to:
● Surgeries
● Rehabilitation in a treatment center
● In-home treatment and rehabilitation
● Complications in treatment, such as infections
● Treatment related to disease development
● Assistive device needs
The more extensive the treatment is, the more complex the costs can be. Often, this also leads to long-term financial losses related to pain and suffering as well. The more complex your care needs are, the more impactful that care will be to your life.
How Long Will It Take for You to Recover From Your Injuries?
It is not always easy to know the answer to this, but our team will work closely with you to try to understand what you are facing. Some of the factors that may impact your recovery include the following:
● Permanent injury that cannot be improved upon
● Complications to health and well-being that are life-long, such as difficulty after a spine surgery
● The lasting impact of the procedure, such as any permanent damage done due to scarring or the loss of a limb
Sometimes, it is not possible to know or estimate what the future holds. Many of our clients will need revision procedures years later due to the complications they have. Others are able to recover within a short amount of time and get back to their life. The longer recovery is likely to take, the more important it is for you to pursue compensation that covers those costs.
How Did This Injury Impact Your Life?
Though the focus on many Winter Haven FL, personal injury legal cases is on the financial losses from medical bills, there are many other losses that apply as well. Think about how this incident has impacted your life and how it will continue to do so in the years to come. Some things to think about include:
● Impact on your ability to work and achieve success in the line of work you have
● Continuous pain and suffering
● Loss of quality of life
● Cost of emotional distress and trauma
● Damage to relationships
● Loss of the ability to have a relationship due to wrongful death
Our goal is to consider all of the impact this incident had. Our injury lawyers in Winter Haven, FL, will use other cases like your own, witnesses, and other factors to estimate these losses. We work hard in pursuing fair compensation for you.
Let our personal injury attorneys in Winter Haven help you estimate your losses during your consultation and after. We will examine all of these areas to determine what your losses may be.
How Can We Prove Pain and Suffering Claims?
Our law firm has had success in providing our clients with representation in pursuing compensation for pain and suffering. This is a challenging area of personal injury law. It is not always simple to put a dollar amount on the pain that a person has or the losses they have incurred as a result of suffering for months in a hospital.
There are several things we will work with you on to navigate these options. Among that is working to prove that you are suffering. We can use a great deal of evidence to do this, including information such as the following:
● Statements and evidence from your doctor about the impact of your injury and the
seriousness of it
● Evaluations and notes from mental health professionals who have worked with you
● Witness statements from family and friends who have encountered the changes and challenges
● Statements from you about how this incident has changed your life
● Evidence from your employer or others about the limitations you are now facing
By working with our a lawyer at our firm face to face, we can offer you the guidance you need to navigate these legal matters.
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim?
Wrongful death occurs when a person dies as a result of the negligence of another person. Sometimes, this happens while they are at work. Other times, they may have died in a car accident caused by a drunk driver. Our goal is not to put a value on their life, as that would be impossible. However, we work with immediate family members and dependents to help them obtain the compensation owed to them.
If you are an immediate family member of the person who died and that person was contributing to your life, you may be owed compensation. This type of compensation may be used to pay for the final arrangements of the individual and their final medical bills. In addition, if you are a dependent for that individual, you may be owed money for those losses.
In wrongful death cases in Winter Haven, FL, we encourage our clients to work very closely with us to help us understand what occurred and why. It can be very challenging to reach out for this help, but it can be even more financially devastating not to do so.
Why Trust Howell & Thornhill with Your Personal Injury Legal Matter in Winter Haven, FL
Since 1975, our law firm and expert personal injury lawyers have worked to provide our clients with legal support and guidance. We know how challenging personal injury cases are because of how many people we have seen work through these challenges. When you turn to us for your legal guidance, you can expect:
● Decades of experience working through Florida personal injury courts with success
● Attorneys who will meet with you face to face to discuss the pain and suffering you are facing
● Expert personal injury lawyers who will fight hard to get you the maximum compensation owed to you
● The staff to help us create a clear view of your losses, including an on-staff investigator and registered nurse
● Results – ask us about the compensation we have helped clients facing similar situations to yours obtained with our help
Set Up a Free Consultation with Our Legal Team Now
Contact Howell & Thornhill now to discuss your case during a free consultation. There is nothing for you to pay for your consultation. If we decide to take your case and we do not help you recover compensation, you owe us nothing.
Do not wait to get the legal guidance you need. Turn to our Winter Haven, FL, personal injury lawyers now for a free consultation to discuss your case in detail. Do not wait any longer to obtain the compensation owed to you.
