Any injury sustained in an unexpected accident can interfere with your daily activities and lead to significant financial losses. However, injuries that result in permanent disability or disfigurement can alter every aspect of the rest of your life. If you were severely harmed because of someone else’s negligence, seeking comprehensive civil recovery for your losses becomes especially important to secure your financial future.
Fortunately, help is available from a Dayton catastrophic injury lawyer at O’Connor, Acciani & Levy. In addition to investigating the liable parties and evaluating your subsequent losses, our dedicated personal injury attorneys will work to defend you from allegations of comparative fault that could limit the amount of restitution available to you.
Common Causes of Severe Injuries in Dayton
Legal negligence can cause catastrophic harm in various ways, including but not limited to:
- Collisions between motor vehicles
- Malpractice by healthcare providers
- Unreasonably dangerous property conditions
- Product defects that are not corrected by manufacturer prior to release for public sale
A skilled attorney in the area can investigate a catastrophic accident to determine the cause and potentially liable parties.
Establishing Fault for Catastrophic Harm
Regardless of how severely an injury will impact the victim’s short-term and long-term standard of living, the basic principles behind civil litigation remain the same. To hold someone else financially responsible for an accident resulting in a catastrophic injury, a plaintiff must show through a preponderance of evidence that the named defendant(s) in their claim directly caused the injury through a reckless or careless breach of a duty of care.
Potential Roadblocks to Recovery for Catastrophic Injuries
However, victims can also contribute to causing or worsening their own injuries. In these scenarios, they may only be able to recover for the percentage of total losses they can attribute to another party.
On top of that, Ohio Revised Code §2315.33 states that a plaintiff who is primarily at fault for their injuries may be barred from collecting any compensation at all, regardless of the severity of their accident. Representation from a skilled Dayton catastrophic injury attorney can make a huge difference when it comes to disproving any allegations that the victim was partially at fault.
Do Damage Caps Apply to Catastrophic Injury Claims?
One important way in which catastrophic injury claims differ from other types of personal injury litigation in Ohio is that there is no cap on recoverable damages. Under normal circumstances, O.R.C. §2315.18 prohibits injured victims from recovering more than $250,000 or three times the value of their objective economic damages—whichever is greater—for non-economic damages.
However, if an accident leads to a permanent physical deformity, loss of limb, loss of organ function, or loss of capacity to care for oneself on a daily basis, this limitation does not apply. A hardworking Dayton attorney can help catastrophic injury victims to pursue the full value of their future losses and get the compensation they deserve for their suffering.
Seek Help from a Dayton Catastrophic Injury Attorney
Permanent injuries affect every aspect of a victim’s life, as well as the lives of their loved ones who may need to provide daily care for them. Unfortunately, the sheer scope of losses that stem from these injuries can complicate the civil recovery process, especially if you try to pursue this type of claim without legal counsel.
At O’Connor, Acciani & Levy, a Dayton personal injury lawyer is here to provide the help you need to achieve a positive case resolution. Call today for a private consultation.
