Pursuing a personal injury claim is a process that can get very involved. Each claimant has to assess what they need to get from the case and how aggressively they want to pursue it. You can examine these questions, however, by thinking like a personal injury lawyer.

Who Is Potentially Liable?

The fact that something bad happened and that it left you injured doesn't necessarily mean you have a case. It's important to be able to clearly identify an at-fault party.

Bear in mind this doesn't always mean the individual most responsible for what happened. A personal injury attorney rarely pursues a claim against an individual employee or authorized agent of a business, for example. If someone working at the local grocery store did something that led to you getting hurt, such as stocking shelves too high, the claim is almost always going to be against the employer and not the stocker.

Cases against individuals are pursuable. A claim can be brought against a single residential property owner, for example, but a personal injury attorney usually wants to go as high as possible in assigning responsibility. First, this is because responsibility for failures should go to the top. Second, it's more likely an organization will have insurance that can cover injury damages than an individual will.

Were There Actual Damages?

Physical injuries requiring medical care are the simplest form of legal damages, and you have the right to recovery money for them. More complex issues arise from things like mental and emotional traumas, and each state has its own rules.

Did They Have a Duty of Care?

A core principle of injury law is the duty of care. Not everyone in the world is responsible for preventing you from coming to harm.

Who is responsible? The simplest version is when you had been openly invited to a place where you were subsequently hurt. The classic idea of invitation is going to a mall that has opened its doors to the public. By inviting members of the public to come to the mall, its owners and shop operators have taken on a legal duty to ensure a reasonably safe location. Consequently, invitees have the right to seek compensation for subsequent injuries.

There are also more complicated scenarios, such as public sidewalks and places that weren't posted as off-limits. A personal injury lawyer can help you decide whether your case fits one of these models. For more information, contact law firms like Wolfe  Jones Wolfe Hancock Daniel & South LLC.