Personal Injury

What does personal injury law entail?

Personal injury law protects your rights if you have been injured or have damage to your property.  A variety of factors can cause personal injury, including an accident, intentional harm, defective products (such as bad brakes on a car), or defective services (such as dental or medical malpractice).  Personal injury can result in physical or psychological pain, due to someone’s negligence or unsafe actions.

An injured victim or the victim's family can file an injury claim to seek compensation for his or her injuries and property damage.  These injuries are usually compounded by other hardships such as permanent disability or a loss of income.  A personal injury settlement is an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant that provides compensation to the victim without the need to go to trial.  When further settlement negotiations are not in our client's interest, Richard Seidel takes the case to court to win a jury verdict.

When is a personal injury claim considered valid?

To have a valid personal injury claim, you have to sustain a physical or psychological injury as a result of the fault of another person, organization, or company.  For example, if you slipped on a wet floor in a supermarket and broke your leg, then you would have appropriate grounds to sue.  However, if you opened a package and got a paper cut, you cannot sue the company that manufactured the packaging because your injury was insignificant and not the fault of the packaging manufacturer.  

Statute of limitations

After a person has been injured, he or she can only sue the other party or parties within a certain period of time, which is known as the statute of limitations.  This means that the injury must be relatively recent.  In the state of New Jersey, for example, the statute of limitations ends 24 months after the injury takes place.  To increase the odds of winning the case and being perceived as more credible, the lawsuit should be filed as close to the injury date as possible.

Contact us

If you have suffered an injury and would like to speak to Richard Seidel, please call the Law Offices of Richard S. Seidel, P.C. at 215-546-1225 or toll free at 1-877-593-3067 or contact us online.