Were you injured in a slip and fall? Read these Atlanta slip and fall tips and contact Gunnels Injury Law to arrange a free consultation.
Slip and Fall Recorded Statement
We are often asked by people whether they should give a recorded statement to an insurance company after they have been injured in a slip and fall accident. The answer to this question is no. While you should speak with the manager on duty to make an incident report immediately after your fall, don’t ever speak to the insurance company on your own without an attorney.
While you may think you are helping your claim, what you are doing is the exact opposite. Insurance companies use trained claims examiners to ask questions in a way that will lead to misleading answers and make it much more difficult for you to prove your claim going forward. There’s nothing to be gained from this process. You have no obligation to give such a statement. If you are not represented by an attorney and asked to give one of these statements, don’t do so.
Slip and Fall Medical Bills
When we have clients come in who have been injured in slip and fall, one of the first things they want to know is if they need to have a minimum amount of medical expenses incurred in order to justify a personal injury case. While there are some cases that have very significant injuries and minor medical expenses, those are the exception and not the rule. When looking at a slip and fall claim, you need to have an injury that’s pretty substantial to warrant pursuing one of those cases.
The reason for that is because these types of cases are so fact and expert-intensive. They’re expensive to work up. No one wants to spend their time going through a case where the value of the injury is $15,000, but you have to spend $20,000 on the case to make that recovery. In order to pursue one of these cases, you generally need to have a situation where someone has a significant injury such as a broken bone, or an injury requiring surgery, in order to justify the claim. If you have been injured in a slip and fall, it’s a good idea to immediately contact a personal injury lawyer who can help you evaluate your case and make sure you understand what’s necessary to pursue it.
Slip and Fall Settlement Timeline
People who have slip and fall cases often want to know how long it will take to resolve their claim. The answer to that question is we never know. They can vary greatly depending on the severity of the injuries and how strong the evidence is. Slip and fall cases are very evidence-intensive because you have to prove the liability of the premises owner where the slip and fall occurred. That often involves receiving video evidence that the store may have, internal reports, questioning workers that were there, and trying to figure out if these types of injuries had happened previously. In a slip and fall, it’s very rare for the case to resolve prior to filing a lawsuit. With car wreck cases, you’re often able to resolve them quickly because the liability of the at-fault driver is clear. That’s usually not the case in a premises liability claim.
You can usually expect from the time the lawsuit is filed that it will take 18 months to three years before you can expect to get a resolution in a slip and fall case. Generally, we’re not able to file those lawsuits until the injured party has finished treating for his or her injuries because we need to know the full extent of the damages suffered.