As a Boston-Dedham injury attorney, I am always shocked when I talk to people who have suffered a Massachusetts personal injury – and learn that they never brought their case to a Massachusetts injury lawyer. I find the reasons to be sometimes shocking. Most either minimze the importance of their injury or they mistakenly believe that they have to pay exorbitant legal fees, when the fact is that in all injury cases, lawyers are paid on a contingent-fee basis. Thisi means that an attorney is paid only AFTER the attorney wins the case and the client receives compensation for his or her injuries. The contingent legal fee system isn’t “jackpot justice,” as critics of our civil justice system like to call it. Quite the opposite, the contingent legal fee system provides the “Keys to the courthouse” for average Americans who could otherwise never afford to take on large corporate defendants and their liability insurance companies.
I’m here to tell you now about some of the Massachusetts injury cases that can often cause life-long injuries and are important to seek qualified plaintiffs’ legal counsel about.
For example, many people don’t follow up with a lawyer after a Massachusetts car accident, because they erroneously believe that their injury “doesn’t qualify” for a lawsuit. I can assure you that even if you suffer minor soft-tissue damage, it is important to speak with an experienced Massachusetts car accident lawyer, because this is a complicated area of law, and the vast amjority of people wouldn’t know what their auto insurance policy says, or what their rights were. The fact is, the majority of soft-tissue type injuries that occur in a car accident, don’t fully develop symptoms for days and perhaps weeks later. Even if you did not suffer broken bones or scarring, you can still seek legal compensation for your damages, after your medical bills exceed $2,000. This $2,000 figure is a “tort threshold” that must be met first before an auto accident victim can file suit for damages in Massachusetts. Even a minor soft-tissue damage injury may involve multiple visits to a doctor, chiropractor, orthopedist, licensed physical therapist, and even muscular massage treatments. All these therapies can qualify in reaching the $2,000 medical expense threshold, and there’s no reason that an auto accident victim should be denied the legal right to seek compensation in court, if necessary. And when a catastrophic injury results in someone being maimed, or when a car accident results in a fatality, the compensation can amount to extremely large sums of money.
If you have suffered any kind of a Massachusetts car accident injury, or an injury from a car-pedestrian accident, I urge you to seek out an experienced Boston accident attorney.
In my next post, I’ll discuss a few other types of accidents and injuries that injured victims can seek compensation for in Massachusetts.