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At Hickey Law Firm, P.A., we find that many of our clients have similar questions when it comes to personal injury litigation. Located in Miami, a personal injury attorney serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and anywhere else in Florida can provide you with answers to your questions if you are looking to file a claim. This list of frequently asked questions has been assembled so that individuals looking to learn more about personal injury litigation can use it as a quick reference. If you have additional questions regarding the litigation process, or you would like to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation in the Miami area, please contact a personal injury attorney from our firm today.
OUR MISSION is to provide to you, the honest, seriously injured person, the advice you need, the representation you want, and the compensation you deserve. By doing this, we correct unsafe places, procedures, conditions, and products on cruise ships, stores, commercial facilities, at work, and at home.
Representing honest seriously injured people in cases of personal injury, wrongful death, cruise ship accidents, maritime accidents, boating accidents, aviation and airplane crashes, slip and falls, trip and falls, car accidents, truck accidents, product liability, medical malpractice, professional negligence, wrongful prescriptions, sexual assault, assault and battery, and negligent security. We represent these people in cases where they have suffered wrongful death or injuries with permanent impairments or disabilities such as orthopedic injuries which include broken bones or torn ligaments or tendons, injuries to the organs, neurological injuries, head and brain injuries, burn injuries, psychological injuries from trauma, or scarring and disfigurement.
Do I have a case?
What does it cost to hire a lawyer for a personal injury claim?
What is my case worth?
Is there a time limit to file a lawsuit?
What if I was partly at fault in the accident?
Do I need a personal injury attorney?
(For cruise passengers): Do I have to file a claim or lawsuit in Miami?
Do I have a case?
If you have been injured as a result of the reckless, negligent, and careless actions of another party, you can file a personal injury claim for damages. Individuals, businesses, and governmental agencies have a legal responsibility to act in a manner that does not place others at unreasonable risk of harm or injury. If a party acts negligently and causes injury to another person as a result, he or she can be held liable for damages. At our Miami law firm, a personal injury attorney can help you file a personal injury claim if you have been injured at the hands of another party. In the tragic event of a loved one's death, we can also assist you in filing a wrongful death claim.
What does it cost to hire a lawyer for a personal injury claim?
Personal injury cases are handled on a contingency fee basis. Payment for our legal representation is contingent on our reaching a successful case resolution in the form of either a verdict or settlement on your behalf. In the event of a successful case resolution, we will take a pre-determined percentage of the recovery as payment. If we do not obtain financial compensation on your behalf, you owe us nothing for our services, though you may be responsible for case costs, such as filing fees. To learn more about which expenses you may be responsible for, please contact Hickey Law Firm, P.A., today. A personal injury attorney serving the Greater Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Florida area can review your case and advise you of your legal options.
What is my case worth?
Every personal injury case is different. Personal injury law covers a variety of legal areas, including car accidents, railroad accidents, cruise ship accidents and assaults, product liability, premises liability, and medical malpractice. The amount of financial compensation you may be eligible for depends on the circumstances of your specific case. However, the damages to fix what can be fixed and help what can be helped include past and future medical expenses, loss of income in the past, loss of ability to earn income in the future. The damages to balance the harms and losses are for past and future pain and suffering, debilitating, disfigurement, scarring, mental anguish, and loss of ability to enjoy life.
Is there a time limit to file a lawsuit?
There is a statute of limitations, or time limit for every lawsuit, in the state of Florida that places a time limit on filing a personal injury lawsuit. If you or someone you love has been injured as a result of the reckless and negligent actions of another party, we urge you to contact a personal injury attorney from Hickey Law Firm, P.A., as soon as possible. Preparing for a personal injury lawsuit can be a time-consuming process. If you hesitate to seek legal counsel, it can seriously jeopardize your chances of being justly compensated for your suffering.
What if I was partly at fault in the accident?
If you were partly at fault, your burden of responsibility in the accident will be taken into account if and when we take on your case. Bearing part of the responsibility of the accident can limit the amount of compensation you obtain in a settlement or verdict, but it does not automatically eliminate your eligibility for compensation. Whichever party bears the brunt of the responsibility is responsible for compensating the victims for damages. A Miami personal injury attorney from our law firm can review your case free of charge and determine liability.
Do I need a personal injury attorney?
Pursuing a personal injury claim can be difficult, and the cruise lines, railroads, and insurance companies all hire lawyers who appear nice to the judge and jury but who fight us every step. For the best opportunity of obtaining the maximum amount of compensation to which you are entitled, it is in your best interest to seek representation from an experienced personal injury attorney. Serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and anywhere else in Florida, a lawyer from Hickey Law Firm, P.A., can review you case and determine a course of action to bring about a successful resolution.
How do I pay your law firm? I cannot afford attorney’s fees.
In the United States, we allow people to pay lawyers a contingency fee. This allows people who ordinarily cannot afford to hire a lawyer and pay a fee to hire one who takes a fee out of the recovery at the end of the case.
Why is this important? Because the other side, that is the defendant, will have its insurance company hire a law firm. All Defendants we bring claims against - whether it is a cruise line, a grocery store, a doctor, a hospital, or a person - have insurance. The insurance company pays the lawyers for the Defendant. The insurance company will pay the lawyers and their law firm hourly. That is, the Defendant’s lawyer's bill for every hour they put into the case and for every hour every lawyer at that firm puts into the case. They get paid to spend more time on the case. They have an incentive to spend as much time as possible on the case and even to drag it out. They always do. (We have an incentive to get to the point).
The lawyers on the other side of us only represent insurance companies or large corporations. They have ongoing relationships with all of these companies, and represent these companies on a regular basis.
These law firms who represent Defendants also have ongoing relationships with their “experts”. These are the people who come in and testify about whether there was negligence or in the case of a doctor expert how badly, or not, you were hurt. These are experts who are paid by the insurance companies in many cases each and every year. They usually come to the “opinion” that the Defendant was not at fault and that the Plaintiff was at fault.
Even the doctors hired by the Defendant’s law firms are hired almost always and exclusively by Defendants. Some of these doctors are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from all of the cases in which they represent insurance companies. You may never have seen them before, but we the lawyers see them all the time in cases. They will testify, every time, either that there was no injury or if there is an injury it was caused by something before or after this accident.
You and your family when you have a claim are up against a big machine. The machine is not only the cruise line or a driver of another car or a business which was negligent in its maintenance or in its product. It is the insurance company behind the scenes, the Defense lawyers, and their “experts”. In fact, these companies would rather pay all of this money to their lawyers when they could have changed the maintenance procedures or made the area safe and secure for people like you and your family. These companies estimate that sometimes they can persuade a jury that the Defendant is not wrong, that the Plaintiff is all at fault, or that the Plaintiff’s injuries were caused by something in the past. These are common Defense lawyer tactics. They are just that. They are designed to distract the jury from the facts, from the Defendant’s negligence, and from the Plaintiff’s injuries and disabilities.
That is why you need a lawyer. In this system, you pay out of the proceeds of any settlement or out of the proceeds of a judgment after a jury verdict. That way, you do not pay until the end and only if you recover. If you do not recover, you do not pay. In the event that you lose, we the law firm lose as well. We pay all of the costs and we recover nothing for our fees, for our time for the months or years it takes to prepare a case for trial. However, if you do win, we get paid a portion of the recovery.
(For cruise passengers): Do I have to file a claim or lawsuit in Miami?
Yes, if you were a passenger on any ship of Carnival Cruise Lines, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Celebrity Cruise Lines, or Norwegian Cruise Lines.
Why?
Because the cruise lines dictates where suit has to be filed, under in the fine print of your ticket stub.
Contact a Personal Injury Attorney Serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and Anywhere Else in Florida
If you have additional questions regarding the litigation process or you would like to file a personal injury claim for injuries you have sustained, please contact a Miami-area personal injury attorney from Hickey Law Firm, P.A. Serving Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, and anywhere else in Florida, we will work tirelessly to protect your rights.
To schedule a free consultation with a Miami-area personal injury attorney, contact our Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, Florida-area law firm today.
1401 Brickell Ave. Suite 510 Miami, Florida 33131 Click HERE to view location and directions
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