Columbia Personal Injury Lawyer

A sudden serious injury completely disrupts your world, often dividing life into before and after. When an injury knocks your life off course, and you realize that it was completely preventable if only someone else had taken reasonable care or practiced due diligence, it’s especially traumatic. Fortunately, Missouri’s civil courts and insurance system allow injury victims to recover compensation and a sense of financial accountability and justice. If you’ve been injured in Columbia, MO and someone else’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions caused the injury, you don’t have to be left alone to suffer the consequences. Call Miller & Hine Law for experienced legal counsel to maximize your chances of full and fair compensation.

Why Choose Miller & Hine as Your Personal Injury Lawyers In Columbia

The St. Louis personal injury attorneys at Miller & Hine have over 50 years of combined experience to put behind your personal injury claim. Our firm advocates for injury victims against defendants and insurance companies who don’t have an injury victim’s best interests as their priority. With our experienced representation behind your claim, you’ll have the following advantages:

• Open communication and availability so you’re always included and informed on the progress of your case
• A personalized strategy to obtain the maximum compensation available under the unique circumstances of your case rather than a carbon-copy approach
• A law firm that handles each client’s case as though they’re family
• All of the resources, knowledge, and experience of an entire legal team behind your case as well as the devoted attention of the attorney dedicated to your case
• Our history of notable results, including a recent $400,000 recovery for a medical malpractice victim makes us a respected voice behind your claim

We take on all financial risk for our injured clients by offering a free case consultation and contingency-based payment so you only pay us after we recover your compensation.

What Types of Personal Injury Cases Do We Handle at Miller & Hine?

Injuries happen in many ways, but when they occur through no fault of your own but due to another party’s negligence, it’s especially frustrating—especially when the results have serious impacts on all aspects of your life. At Miller & Hine, our Columbia car accident lawyers represent clients with a wide variety of personal injury cases in Columbia, including the following:

• Car accidents
• Commercial truck accidents
• Pedestrian and bicycle accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Slip-and-fall accidents and other premises liability cases
• Workplace injuries
• Defective product injuries
• Dig bites
• Medical malpractice
• Birth injuries
• Nursing home abuse

If someone else’s actions or negligent inaction caused fatal injuries to a loved one, Miller & Hine can help a close family member such as a spouse, parent, or adult child recover compensation through a personal injury-wrongful death claim.

What Types of Injuries are Common In Columbia Personal Injury Claims?

If you’ve suffered painful injuries, it can feel overwhelming to contemplate the future when you have medical procedures ahead, bills piling up, and often an inability to return to work in the previous capacity—or at all. A successful claim relieves financial worries so you can focus on healing from your injury. Common injuries named in personal injury cases in Columbia include the following:

• Fractures
• Neck injuries
• Back injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Internal organ damage
• Dog bites
• Burns
• Lacerations, contusions, and abrasions
• Soft-tissue injuries such as sprains, strain, and torn ligaments
• Traumatic limb loss
• Loss of hearing or vision

No one begins a day expecting to end it in a hospital, but nearly 140 million emergency room visits occurred nationwide in a single recent year, including 40 million injury-related visits.

What To Do After a Personal Injury

When a sudden serious injury comes out of nowhere, it’s difficult to keep a cool head and take purposeful action. In the worst cases, you could be unconscious or incapacitated and able to do nothing except wait for help. However, if you can use a phone safely or ask a companion to use one, you can quickly preserve evidence by doing the following:

• First, use the phone to call 911 if you need an ambulance, or arrange transportation to an emergency room or urgent care center
• Then, use the phone’s camera to take photos of the cause of the injury, such as the damaged vehicles in an accident or a wet floor after a slip-and-fall injury
• Photograph any visible injuries
• Ask for an accident report or incident report if the accident was traffic-related or happened in a business

Always go to an emergency room or urgent care center directly from the scene of the injury. Ask for a thorough medical assessment and a detailed medical report. Then, carefully follow your doctor’s orders and keep track of all medical expenses.

Proving Liability In Personal Injury Claims Under Missouri’s Comparative Negligence System

Missouri’s pure comparative negligence laws allow injury victims to recover compensation from the person or business entity who caused their injury, even if they contributed to the cause and severity of the injury. The insurance company deducts the injury victim’s percentage of fault from the amount they pay out on the claim. For instance, if you slipped and fell in a big box store because poor drainage caused a wet entrance, the insurance company could assign you 20% of the fault for your injury by asserting that the sandals you wore contributed to your fall. This would reduce a $100,000 claim to $80,000. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for insurance companies to use this system to protect their profits by shifting fault to injury victims. An experienced attorney investigates the accident and documents compelling evidence of the negligent party’s liability by showing the following to be the facts of the case:

• The responsible party owed a duty of reasonable care to prevent injury to the injury victim
• They breached this duty through negligent or reckless actions
• Their breach of duty directly caused the injury
• The injury victim suffered damages from the injury

Proving liability through a preponderance of the evidence is the injury victim’s responsibility in a personal injury claim in Missouri. A skilled attorney is an ally to safeguard your best interests during this process.

What Damages Can I Recover In a Personal Injury Claim?

Injuries are expensive as well as painful, making it essential to hold the at-fault party accountable. Compensation in Columbia personal injury cases typically comes from the at-fault party’s appropriate insurance, such as auto insurance after a car accident or malpractice insurance after a medical malpractice claim. Common damages recovered in many personal injury claims include the following:

• Past and future medical expenses
• Past and future income loss
• Diminished earning capacity
• Out-of-pocket costs
• Compensation for pain and suffering

Depending on the unique circumstances of the case, other damages could apply, such as disfigurement compensation, compensation for catastrophic injuries such as loss of limb, loss of vision or hearing, or diminished quality of life.

Call the Columbia Personal Injury Attorneys at Miller & Hine

You don’t have to be left responsible for the economic consequences of an injury caused by someone else’s actions or negligence while you’re also dealing with the physical pain and the disruption to your life. Instead, reach out to Miller & Hine so we can take prompt action to develop the right strategy to obtain the maximum compensation available to you.