When a vehicle strikes a pedestrian, the resulting injuries can be catastrophic. There is some legal recourse available, though, and injured pedestrians can receive significant compensation for their injuries.
If you are injured in a pedestrian accident, contacting a local personal injury attorney could be your best option. With the help of a skilled Wheaton pedestrian accident lawyer, your case could move swiftly toward the compensation that you and your family deserve.
Fatal Pedestrian Accidents
Accidents involving collisions between pedestrians and vehicles have a high risk of serious or fatal injuries due to the fact that pedestrians have no protection from the vehicle. If someone is killed by being hit by a vehicle, any resulting civil case would be considered a wrongful death claim.
Wrongful death claims may be brought by the deceased person’s surviving family members or by a chosen representative of the deceased person. Other than that, they function the same way that personal injury claims function. The family can sue for damages like medical or funeral costs, their loved one’s lost wages, the emotional toll of losing a loved one, the loved one’s pain and suffering before death, and similar damages.
Examples of Common Pedestrian Accident Injuries
Each pedestrian accident is unique, but there are usually certain commonalities between them. Even when non-fatal, pedestrian accidents can produce incredibly serious injuries like broken bones, trauma to the head and brain, paralysis of one or more extremities, road rash, severe damage to internal organs, and more.
All these injuries can have intense effects on a person’s quality of life, and some may be permanent. A skilled pedestrian accident lawyer in Wheaton could use the medical records and bills of an injured patient to argue for high amounts of compensation to offset the expenses and emotional tolls that such injuries can cause.
Assigning Fault after a Wheaton Pedestrian Accident
In some cases, the fault for the accident in question may not be wholly attributable to one party. However, even if the pedestrian in the accident was not walking in a defined crosswalk, this does not mean that they are barred from filing a claim. There can be other ways that the driver involved may still be at fault for the accident—for instance, by driving while distracted or under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
In Illinois, a pedestrian can still receive compensation for their damages even if they have some legal fault in the accident. Under the doctrine of comparative negligence, an injured plaintiff can be compensated unless they bear more than 50 percent of the fault in the incident. For example, if a court found that a pedestrian’s failure to use a crosswalk accounts for 20 percent of the fault for their injuries, their overall compensation would also be reduced by 20 percent.
What a Wheaton Pedestrian Accident Attorney Could Do to Help
There are many ways in which having the help of a skilled attorney could be crucial to achieving a positive result in a case. They could gather and preserve evidence that may lead to less fault being attributed to you, ensure that all deadlines are met and all paperwork filed, and bring in expert witnesses to arrive at a suitable value for damages. If you are injured in a pedestrian accident, contact a Wheaton pedestrian accident lawyer today so that they could begin devising a winning legal strategy for your case.