A sudden injury comes out of nowhere, but it can temporarily or permanently change your life in dramatic ways—and rarely for the better. The consequences of an injury quickly add up, with medical bills coming in at the same time you may be unable to return to work. These losses are your damages in a San Marcos personal injury claim. If someone else’s negligence caused your injury, you don’t have to be left responsible for the economic consequences while trying to recover from the physical ones. Call the experienced Austin personal injury lawyers at Shaw Cowart, LLP so we can put our experience, knowledge, and resources behind your case.
Why You Should Select Shaw Cowart, LLP
It’s rarely easy to navigate a personal injury claim when most are direct claims against insurance companies that protect their profits at the injury victim’s expense. At Shaw Cowart, LLP, we put the following advantages behind your San Marcos personal injury case:
- Over 60 years of combined experience in Texas injury law, the insurance system, and civil courts
- A team of respected trial attorneys who have dedicated their careers to advocating for injury victims against powerful companies and insurers
- A history of recovering millions of dollars for our clients, putting a respected voice behind negotiations for a settlement or litigation in court
We welcome new clients with a free case consultation. Even better, we only get paid after we recover your compensation. Our recent notable results include a $750,000 claim against a hotel bar owner under the Texas’s dram shop liability laws.
What Types of Personal Injury Cases Do We Handle at Shaw Cowart, LLP?
Personal injury law centers around the idea that we all must take reasonable actions to prevent causing harm to those around us. When an individual or business fails to take basic care and the result is an injury with damages to someone else, the responsible party is liable for the damages. Common types of personal injury cases in San Marcos and the surrounding region include the following:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Bus accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Scooter accidents
- Boating accidents
- Slip-and-fall accidents
- Premises liability
- Dog bites
- Defective product injuries
- Workplace injuries
- Drunk driving accidents
- Birth injuries
- Medical malpractice
- Nursing home abuse
- Sexual abuse
- Rideshare accidents
- Catastrophic injuries
When someone else’s actions or negligence cause a fatal injury to a loved one, their close family members may recover compensation with the help of an Austin wrongful death lawyer.
What to Do After a Personal Injury In San Marcos
Some injuries are catastrophic or cause incapacitation, so the injury victim cannot take purposeful action at the scene but must depend on help from others and emergency services. In many cases, however, an injury victim or an uninjured companion can safely use their phone while awaiting help. A cell phone becomes a powerful tool for preserving evidence when you do the following after a sudden injury:
- First, call 911 to report the accident, request an ambulance, or arrange transportation to an emergency room
- Apply emergency first aid
- Then, use the phone’s camera to take photos of anything relevant to the injury, like a broken staircase in a hotel or the damaged vehicles in a car accident
- Take photos of the injury if it’s visible
- Add the contact information of anyone involved, such as drivers and property owners
- Add the contact information of eyewitnesses
- If the accident or injury was captured on a security camera, ask the owner to preserve the video
- If the injury happened in a store or business, ask the manager to write out an accident report
After a serious injury, it’s vital to go to a hospital straight from the scene or as soon as possible. This not only assures prompt emergency medical treatment but also provides evidence that the injury occurred in the accident or incident as you describe in your claim.
Your detailed medical report and copies of medical bills become important evidence in a personal injury claim.
Types of Injuries In Texas Personal Injury Claims
Any injury that causes medical expenses and interferes with the ability to work qualifies as a personal injury in a claim against the responsible party. Some injuries are minor and fully recoverable but result in temporary financial losses from an emergency room bill and a few days of lost earnings. Other injuries are more severe or catastrophic, with more substantial losses and long-term disability or impairment. Common injuries named in San Marcos personal injury cases include:
- Broken bones
- Neck injuries
- Back injuries
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Soft-tissue injuries like sprains and torn ligaments
- Burns
- Spinal cord injuries
- Facial trauma
- Toxic exposure illnesses
- Lacerations, contusions, and abrasions
- Dog bite punctures and tears
- Internal organ injuries
- Near-drowning
- Traumatic amputations
When losses add up after an injury, a personal injury lawyer carefully calculates the economic damages and then uses a formula to arrive at a compensatory amount for the pain and suffering involved until the injury victim reaches the maximum medical improvement.
What Can I Get From a Personal Injury Claim In San Marcos?
A successful personal injury claim recovers economic damages and non-economic damages. Economic damages are easier to calculate since they involve totaling invoices and adding up lost hours of pay. Non-economic damages like pain and suffering are not as easily assigned a monetary value, but they are usually the hardest-hitting impacts of a serious injury, with life-altering effects on a personal level.
No two compensation amounts are the same, but common damages awarded include the following:
- Medical expenses
- Anticipated future medical costs
- Lost wages
- Future income loss
- Diminished earning ability
- Out-of-pocket costs, such as travel expenses for seeing a specialist
- Compensation for pain and suffering
In catastrophic injury cases, additional damages may be awarded depending on the type of injury; for example, compensation for loss of limb, disfigurement, the loss of one of the senses, diminished quality of life, loss of consortium (the full physical and emotional relationship with another), PTSD, or wrongful death benefits to a family member.
Contact the San Marcos Personal Injury Lawyers at Shaw Cowart, LLP
We take on every injured client’s case as though it’s our own. Call our San Marcos law office today so we can begin a strategy to recover the maximum compensation available in your personal injury claim while you focus on healing and spending time with your family.