After getting hurt in an accident, your brain probably starts racing with all sorts of questions.It’s completely natural to wonder if what happened to you might qualify as a valid personal injury claim, especially when you’re dealing with medical bills piling up, missing work, and just generally feeling like everything’s been turned upside down.

But here’s the thing: not every accident automatically turns into a legal case, even if you got hurt. Personal injury lawyers have to look at a number of factors to determine whether your situation is strong enough to actually pursue in court or through settlement negotiations.

Understanding how lawyers determine if you have a personal injury claim can really help you prepare for a consultation and know what kind of information you’ll need to share with them.

Proving Negligence or Fault

This is undoubtedly the biggest impediment in any personal injury case. Your attorney must prove that someone else was negligent in some manner, and their negligence caused your injuries. It’s not enough to say “bad things happened to me.” Bad things only matter when a person is required to take some care to avoid causing that bad thing, and that person has a legal responsibility to avoid that bad thing.

Lawyers look for evidence that the wrongdoer acted carelessly, acted recklessly, or acted irresponsibly. For instance, maybe they were texting while driving, or the broken stair that the property owner knew about was not repaired, or the party acted contrary to safety protocols that could have avoided your accident.

There is an overarching principle in tort cases known as “duty of care.” This means that everyone owes a duty to behave in a reasonably safe manner and to take care to avoid injuring others. Drivers owe a duty to drive in a safe manner (complying with the rules of the road and avoiding distractions while driving). Property owners owe a duty to not create a condition that makes their property unsafe by keeping it in a reasonably free state of safety. A doctor owes a duty to provide competent medical care.

Your attorney must show that there was a duty, that the defendant did something (or didn’t) that showed a violation of the duty, and that this violation caused your injuries. This may sound complicated, however, good attorneys invigorate all of the evidence and best expert testimony, and weave it together to make the case.

Establishing an Injury Relation to the Incident

Your attorney has to connect your injury to the date you claim you had a surgical error. This can be difficult when you already had prior medical issues as well. Let’s say you had back pain prior to the auto accident, but the auto accident aggravated the earlier pain. Rather you had no prior medical issues related to diving off a pool diving board into water, slipped afterward on the wet floor, and now have chronic pain. Your attorney and insurance company must try and draw the fine line between something that is new and something that was already present pre-incident.

Because of these factors, forget the insurance company, your medical file becomes key. Your attorney will study every aspect of your medical file, looking for consistency between what the incident report states was suffered and what your records show.

If there are holes, or inconsistencies, it is not in your favor. So, if you are treating for a neck injury and you do not tell the physician for two weeks that you have had neck pain, the insurance company is going to take advantage of that; so just a heads up!

Evaluating Damages

The types of economic damages a personal injury claim may include, are a doctor’s bill, time lost from work, property damage (car repairs), and the loss of future medical expenses incurred for additional medical treatment. These economic damages are all concrete damages that can be established and evidenced through statements and bills.

Non-economic damages can be more of a challenge for lawyers, but may have more value. Non-economic damages would include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of the ability to enjoy your life, etc., and also have no tangible value. How does one price their inability to play with their children differently or live with the anxiety from getting in a car behind the wheel?

Experienced lawyers have the training to evaluate cases and recognize and quantify what these kinds of cases might be worth based on similar cases, the seriousness of the injuries involved, and how the life of the injured person is affected (both at the present and any future affect to their quality of life).

Conclusion

There are many elements to consider such as fault, evidence, injury and damages- a lawyer will investigate all components to evaluate if proceeding with your case is even viable and has a reasonable chance of being a profitable venture.

If you have been injured, and really do not know if you have rights and/or options to pursue tort action, a personal injury lawyer can help determine if any portion of your circumstance contains a compensable cause of action.

The majority of personal injury lawyers will provide free consultations. The financial risk is low and exploring other professionals to determine what your situation might be worth. At a minimum, even if your case is not very strong and or is without merit, you will at least know where you are at and can move on with your recovery.