Injuries lead to much more than just physical pain and suffering. The reality is that individuals can suffer emotionally and psychologically as well. Additionally, injuries can lead to significant financial setbacks. At Hill Law Firm, our team is here to help if you need an Austin personal injury attorney by your side. We have extensive experience handling complex injury claims throughout the state of Texas, and we know what it takes to stand up to aggressive insurance carriers to ensure that our clients recover the compensation they need.
Austin Personal Injury Resources
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Choose Hill Law Firm
How Will an Attorney Help With a Personal Injury Case?
Texas Negligence Laws
Common Causes of Personal Injuries in Austin
Common Injuries We Help With
Compensation Available After an Austin Personal Injury
Time Limit to File a Case
Travis County Civil Court Information
Should I Give an Insurance Company My Recorded Statement?
Will My Case Go to Trial?
How Much Does an Injury Attorney Cost?
Speak to a Lawyer Today
Choose Hill Law Firm for Your Austin Personal Injury Case
- At Hill Law Firm, we fight to recover maximum compensation on behalf of our clients in every case that we take.
- We take pride in providing personal and individualized care for every client. Many of our clients are referrals from past clients and our colleagues.
- We have recovered millions of dollars in compensation for individuals and families in Austin and throughout the state of Texas.
How Will an Attorney Help a Personal Injury Claim in Austin?
Personal injury cases can be challenging, but the burden on the injury victim will be lightened when they have an attorney working on their behalf. A skilled personal injury lawyer in Austin can gather any evidence needed to prove liability. This evidence can include:
- Photographs from the scene of the incident
- Video surveillance of the incident
- Statements from eyewitnesses
- Vehicle “black box” data
- Company or employer safety records
An attorney will also ensure that they work with trusted medical and economic experts who can help properly calculate all losses the victim sustains and vigorously negotiate with the insurance carriers involved.
Texas Negligence Laws
Most personal injury cases are based on the legal doctrine of negligence. Negligence is the failure to use proper care, resulting in harm to others. To establish negligence in a personal injury claim, you or your lawyer must provide clear and convincing evidence that the defendant is more likely to be at fault for your accident than not at fault. Negligence consists of four elements:
- Duty of care owed. The defendant had a legal obligation to act in a careful and prudent manner.
- Duty of care breached. The defendant failed to fulfill his or her responsibility of care.
- Causation. The defendant’s action or omission is what caused your accident and injury.
- Damages. You suffered compensable losses because of the defendant’s breach of duty.
Some personal injury claims do not require proof of negligence, such as strict liability lawsuits. With a strict liability claim such as a product liability case, it is enough to prove that the product in question contained a defect and that it caused the injury or illness being claimed; you do not need to prove that the product manufacturer was negligent to qualify for damages.
Texas also has a modified comparative negligence law. Under this law, if a plaintiff is partially at fault for an accident, he or she can still recover compensation. However, the monetary award will be reduced by an amount equivalent to the degree of fault. If you’re found to be more than 50 percent to blame, however, you will not have the right to recover at all. It is important to contact an attorney to assist you if the comparative negligence law arises during your personal injury case.
Common Causes of Personal Injuries in Austin
At Hill Law Firm, we understand that individuals sustain injuries in a wide variety of ways in and around the Austin area. Anytime the careless or negligent actions of others cause harm to an individual, the injury victim may be able to recover compensation for their losses. Some of the most common ways that personal injury claims arise in this area include the following:
- Car accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Truck accidents
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Commercial truck accidents
- Bus accidents
- Construction accidents
- Impaired driving crashes
- Distracted driving accidents
- Company vehicle accidents
- Work injury or illness
- Hospital negligence and medical malpractice
- Nursing home abuse
- Dog bites and animal attacks
- Premises liability and slip and fall accidents
- Food poisoning
- Product liability
- Vape and e-cigarette injuries
- Maritime accidents
- Sexual assault
- Uber & Lyft Accidents
In addition to these injury cases, our team also helps family members and estates of those who have lost their lives due to the negligent actions of another individual, entity, or business. Our compassionate Austin and San Antonio personal injury attorneys can sit with you and answer all of your questions if you have lost a loved one as we formulate the best steps moving forward for your situation.
Most Common Injuries We Help Clients With At Hill Law Firm
The reality is that there are various types of injuries that can occur in the personal injury claims we help clients with. We regularly assist individuals who have sustained relatively minor injuries, moderate injuries, and severe injuries. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Concussions
- Spinal cord trauma with paralysis
- Other severe back or neck injury
- Internal organ damage
- Broken or dislocated bones
- Internal bleeding
- Significant scarring and disfigurement
- Amputations
- Crush injuries
- Severe burn injuries
In addition to these traumatic injuries, our clients regularly come to us after sustaining emotional and psychological trauma caused by the actions of someone else. It is not uncommon for individuals to suffer from anxiety, fear, stress, and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after an accident and their subsequent injuries. Our goal is to make sure clients recover total compensation for their losses, including these unseen injuries.
Compensation Available After an Austin Personal Injury
There may be various types of compensation available to those who are injured as a result of the actions of others. Our team works diligently to recover both economic and non-economic compensation on behalf of every client:
- Economic damages. These types of losses revolve around the calculable expenses an individual sustains after an injury occurs. This can include, but is not limited to, the following:
- Medical expenses
- Medical devices and prescription medications
- Lost income
- Household out-of-pocket expenses
- Property damage losses
- Non-economic damages. This refers to more immeasurable expenses a person is likely to sustain after an injury occurs. For instance, there are no direct bills or receipts that can be added up to calculate a person’s:
- Emotional and psychological distress
- Physical pain and suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of life damages
The total amount of compensation a person receives in these situations will vary depending on the facts surrounding each injury that occurs in Austin. The severity of an injury will likely significantly affect total medical expenses and non-economic damages. Additionally, other factors that can influence total payouts include whether or not an individual can work while they recover, property damage losses, insurance carrier limitations, and more.
Time Limit to File a Personal Injury Case in Austin
According to Texas’s statute of limitations, you must file a personal injury case within two years from the accrual of the cause of action. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 states that, with some exceptions, a person must bring a lawsuit for a personal injury no later than two years from the date of the incident or of injury discovery. In a case where a victim dies because of his or her injuries, the cause of action accrues on the date of death rather than the date of the accident.
If you fail to file your lawsuit within two years in Austin, the courts will most likely refuse to hear the case. However, there are some exceptions to the rule. One is if the victim is a minor under the age of 18. In this case, the victim has two years from his or her 18th birthday to bring a cause of action. Another exception is if the defendant is facing criminal charges for the same incident, such as an injury claim involving assault. In this case, the plaintiff generally has two years from the time that the criminal trial ends to file a civil lawsuit.
Note that if the defendant in your personal injury case is a government entity – such as in a car accident case involving a law enforcement vehicle or a slip and fall accident on public property –your deadline to file a claim is shorter than two years. Municipalities in Texas have the right to enact their own statutes of limitations on claims against the government. In the City of Austin, a victim only has 45 days to send a letter to the City Law Department to initiate a claim.
The statute of limitations is a strict law that does not come with many exceptions. The courts require timely filing so that the justice system stays just for both parties. Otherwise, a claimant would have an unlimited amount of time to bring a claim, which would unjustly hold the threat of a lawsuit against a defendant indefinitely. Speak to an attorney about a potential personal injury claim in Texas as soon as possible to avoid missing your filing window, as well as to preserve valuable evidence before it’s too late.
Travis County Civil Court Information
To file a personal injury lawsuit in Austin, you will use the Travis County Civil Courts, which are housed in the Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse. Austin is where you should file your claim if this is where the defendant lives or works. A lawyer can help you obtain and fill out the required forms to initiate your lawsuit and submit them to the Travis County Civil Courts by the deadline. Here is the basic information about this courthouse:
- Physical address: 1000 Guadalupe, Austin, TX 78701
- Mailing address: P.O. Box 1748, Austin, TX 78767
- Hours of operation: 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- Phone number: (512) 854-4646
- Fax number: (512) 854-4643
Note that most offices now accept civil filings electronically (e-filing). If your claim is worth less than $20,000, you will file with the Small Claims Court – called the Justice Court in Travis County. If you need the Travis County Law Library or Help Center, they are both located at the Ned Granger Building (314 West 11th Street, Suite 140, Austin, Texas 78791). A lawyer can help you not only file a claim in Austin but fully understand your legal options, such as filing a workers’ compensation claim or wrongful death lawsuit.
Should I Give an Insurance Company My Recorded Statement?
No. The recorded statement is a tactic that insurance companies often use to diminish the value of a claim or deny benefits. The insurance company is hoping to record a statement before you fully understand the facts and details of the accident. This gives the insurer the best odds that you will say something to hurt your claim, such as that you feel fine, aren’t injured or might have caused the accident. Even if you don’t say the wrong thing, a claims adjuster can twist your words around and use them against you. If asked to give a recorded statement, politely decline and tell the insurer that you will submit a written statement later.
Will My Case Go to Trial?
The answer to this question depends on your case, but the majority of personal injury claims in Austin don’t go to trial. Most injury claims can be resolved during pretrial negotiations, such as mediation or arbitration, and end with insurance settlements. Since both parties involved can benefit from avoiding the cost and stress of court, settlements are the most common resolution. If you need to file a lawsuit, negotiations for a settlement can continue until the first day of your trial. A lawyer will help you determine the odds of your case going to trial.
How Much Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Cost in Austin?
Affording an attorney after sustaining an injury can seem impossible, but not at Hill Law Firm. Our team handles Austin personal injury claims on a contingency fee basis. This means that our clients will not have to worry about paying any upfront or out-of-pocket costs related to their case. We will only collect legal fees after we successfully recover the compensation our clients need. If we do not win the case, our clients do not pay anything in legal fees.
Contact an Austin Personal Injury Attorney Today
If you or somebody you care about has sustained an injury caused by the careless, negligent, or intentional actions of another individual in the Austin, Texas, area, the team at Hill Law Firm is here to help. We will use our resources to fully investigate every aspect of your claim, determine liability, and handle all interactions with insurance carriers and other parties. Our goal is to make sure that you recover total compensation for your losses. When you need an Austin personal injury attorney, you can contact us by clicking here for a free consultation or calling us at (210) 960-3939.