Slipping and falling down is often seen as an innocuous “injury” with no real consequences. Decades of slapstick using it as a gag and being told to “rub some dirt in it” or something similar can desensitize one to the dangers of slipping and falling down. Indeed, sliping/falling injuries can be quite serious. You could break bones, suffer blunt trauma, or get permanent nerve damage from a nasty slip and fall. These injuries can be expensive to treat and difficult to recover from. Moreover, you may have a sneaking suspicion that the slip and fall was because someone else was not careful.
If you are thinking about filing a lawsuit after a slip and fall injury in New York, our lawyers can help. We have experience representing personal injury plaintiffs of all kinds, including those injured in slip and fall accidents. We know how to handle these cases so that you have a good shot at getting justice and financial compensation in court.
To get a free case review, call The Martello Law Firm’s slip and fall injury attorneys today at the number (914) 685-6950.
Injuries from White Plains, NY Slip/Fall Accidents
Unlike what loony toons would lead you to believe, slipping and falling down can result in very serious injuries. Depending on the height of your fall, what you land on, and how you land, the injuries could be severe indeed.
Broken Bones
If you fall onto a sturdy surface, at speed, or from a great height, there is a chance that you could break bones when you slip and fall. Depending on a number of factors, you could break an arm, leg, or even a rib, pelvis, or skull.
Many broken bone injuries require slings, casts, or other devices to hold the wounded area in place while the body heals. However, some breaks, such as compound fractures where the bone breaks the skin, may require additional procedures like surgery to heal fully.
Finally, there is a good chance that you will need to do strength training in the affected area after the break heals since there may be atrophy from lack of use.
Cuts and Puncture Wounds
If you fall onto something sharp, there is a chance that you get cut up by whatever you fall on. This can happen at, for example, a construction site or if you fall onto an object you did not see.
Cuts often require stitching to heal and can leave permanent scars. It is possible that a cut somewhere on your face could result in permanent disfigurement.
Puncture wounds tend to be significantly harder to treat than cuts and much more dangerous. They are harder to close and stop bleeding. Additionally, a puncture of only a couple inches deep can hit vital organs and put someone in critical condition.
Nerve Damage
Falling and landing in an awkward position can put pressure on nerves in the body, especially in cases involving impingement on the spinal cord from a back or neck injury. A fall with sufficient force can lead to nerve damage that may be permanent. This can result in pain, numbness or tingling in the affected area, or lost range of motion as the nerves are not responding to signals from the brain as they should.
Brain Injuries
A traumatic brain injury, or TBIs for short, are caused by blows to the head which damage the brain. TBIs are very serious. Even mild TBIs/concussions can result in memory loss, irritability, and adverse reactions to sound or light. More severe TBIs can lead to the loss of fine motor skills or even lead to death if the injury is serious enough.
The Legal Process of Slip and Fall Lawsuits in White Plains, NY
Personal injury lawsuits, including slip and fall lawsuits, take a long time. The trial, which is what most people are familiar with in the legal system, is really just the capstone of a potentially years-long legal battle. In fact, many cases do not even make it to trial and are resolved beforehand.
To help prepare you for the long journey ahead, our slip and fall lawyers have put together an overview of what happens in the legal process of pursuing a slip and fall accident lawsuit.
Speaking to Our Lawyers
The first step in any lawsuit is to retain legal counsel. When you talk to our lawyers, we can try to point you in the right direction for your case, but we cannot start working with you on your slip and fall accident lawsuit until we are formally retained as counsel. Once that happens, the real work begins. We can get into the specific details of your case and custom-build an argument to give you the best chance possible in court.
Discovery
One of the lengthiest parts of the legal process is something called “discovery.” This is a formalized process where attorneys for both sides of the lawsuit exchange information and facts. The idea is to get everyone on the same page so that nobody can pull out sneaky surprises at trial and that the legal process is done in a fair way. It may seem strange to give information to your opponent, but it is very important to ensure fairness in the legal process.
The two main forms of discovery are requests for production and interrogatories. Requests for production are when lawyers ask for tangible information about the case. This can be anything from emails to physical evidence to diary entries. Pretty much anything that has information relevant to the case can be asked for in a request for production.
An interrogatory, on the other hand, is a request to know the whereabouts of people who are likely to be involved with the case in some way. For example, a lawyer may want to know where to contact an eyewitness to the fall or an expert who is going to testify in the case.
Your lawyers will also be able to “depose” witnesses by having them come in and answer questions as they would on the stand at trial.
It is important to note that you do not need to hand over all of your information in discovery. Some information is considered “privileged” and does not need to be handed over. For example, the conversations we have with you are protected by attorney-client privilege and do not need to be given to the other side. Additionally, if the other side is asking for things that are unreasonable to ask for, our lawyers can object to handing those things over.
Depositions
Depositions are technically part of the discovery process but are very important and, thus, deserve their own section.
A deposition is an interview taken while under oath about a court case. You are very likely to get deposed by the other side’s lawyer in a slip and fall accident lawsuit. Depositions can happen anywhere, but they usually take place in conference rooms or other office-type settings.
During a deposition, the opposing lawyer will ask you questions about the case. You should answer these questions truthfully and to the best of your ability, even if you think that the truck may hurt your case. This is because lying under oath in a deposition is incredibly damaging to your case, and the vast majority of bad facts in a case are preferable to needing to explain away a lie in a deposition.
Once the opposing lawyer has asked enough questions, our lawyers are able to ask you follow-up questions based on what the other lawyer said. Additionally, if the other lawyer asks you something that is not fair or reasonable, our lawyers can object and explain way, and you will not have to answer the question.
You, everyone who is going to potentially talk on the stand at trial, and possibly other parties may be deposed before trial. The deposition process can take all day, and sometimes days, for just one person, so this process can take quite a while to finish.
Pre-Trial Motions
Pre-trial motions are a way that lawyers can ask the court to do certain things for them. The process is formal, but it mostly consists of filling out a form explaining why you want the court to take a certain course of action.
A common motion filed in many cases is a motion to suppress evidence. This motion is employed when one side of a lawsuit believes that certain evidence should not be seen by the jury or discussed in the lawsuit because it was illegally obtained or is unduly prejudicial to one side of the case. For example, if the defendant wanted to bring evidence of drug addiction into a slip-and-fall case with no drugs involved, a lawyer might move to suppress that evidence because it has nothing to do with the case.
Another pre-trial motion is called a motion for summary judgment. This motion is usually made by the defendant in a case, but it can also be made by the plaintiff.
Settlement Offers
As previously stated, not all cases go to trial. Sometimes, one side will come forth with an offer to drop the matter under certain terms. This is called a settlement.
Settlements are sometimes preferred to trials for a number of reasons. First, the process ends quickly. This makes the legal process less expensive than continuing the case until trial. Second, the outcome is certain. Ultimately, a trial is in the hands of the jury, while a settlement is controlled by the parties. Finally, settlements can be private, while trials are open to whoever wants to come to court and watch when the trial takes place.
Whether you should settle your slip and fall accident lawsuit is a very personal decision that will depend on the unique facts and circumstances of your case. Settling is not losing. If you can get everything you need from a settlement instead of a trial, it may be a good offer. Remember, our lawyers can guide and advise you regarding your options, but you always have the right to a trial, and the decision to settle or not will always be up to you.
Trial
The final step in the legal process is the trial. At this point, most of the facts of the case should be known by lawyers for both parties, and all that remains is to present the evidence to the judge and jury and have them come to their own conclusions after hearing all the arguments and seeing all the evidence and testimony. The jury, after deliberating for a time, will then render a verdict stating that the defendant is either liable or not for your injuries. Additionally, the jury is responsible for determining the amount you get in damages in your slip and fall accident lawsuit.
Appeal
In some instances, you may be able to appeal a case if it does not have a favorable outcome. Even courts get things wrong sometimes.
However, you should know that you cannot appeal a case simply because you do not like the outcome. There are rules about what can be changed on appeal and what cannot. Generally, legal mistakes are correctable on appeal. So, if the judge did something wrong or a lawyer messed up, the case can be appealed. However, courts are very deferential to the fact-finding ability of the jury. Those issues are not appealable in almost all circumstances. Therefore, a factual finding by the jury will likely not be able to be appealed if it is unfavorable.
The appeals process can be complicated, so you should keep in touch with our slip and fall lawyers if you want to appeal a trial court decision.
Speak to Our White Plains, NY Slip and Fall Attorneys Today
We offer free case reviews when you call our slip and fall lawyers from The Martello Law Firm at (914) 685-6950.
