No one starts their day anticipating that their life will abruptly veer off course, yet experiencing a sudden serious injury can change everything in an instant. It’s even more distressing when someone else’s actions or negligence caused the injury, and yet you are the one missing paychecks at the same time that medical bills pile higher.
Fortunately, Texas Civil Courts provide a means of legal redress for personal injury victims in Laredo so they can achieve financial accountability and a sense of justice through a personal injury claim against the at-fault party.
Call the compassionate client advocates at the Law Office of Wawi Tijerina for an attorney who will fight tirelessly for the best possible outcome in your Laredo personal injury case.
Call or text us today at (956) 489-1300 to get started.
Why Choose Wawi Tijerina Law For Your Personal Injury Claim?
If you or a close family member suffered an unexpected injury caused by another party’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions, choosing the right Texas personal injury attorney is the first positive step forward from the trauma of the injury. At Wawi Tijerina Law, we offer the following qualifications and accomplishments to put a strong voice behind your claim:
- A lead attorney with over 20 years of experience navigating Texas injury laws and insurance system with a stunning track record of success
- A law firm that believes in getting to know every client so we can use our empathy and compassion for their struggles to make the strongest possible case for their full compensation
- Founding attorney and native Laredo resident, Wawi Tijerina, is a recognizable name throughout Texas due to her years of experience as a public servant for underserved communities and a former judge of the Municipal Court of the City of Laredo
- Our track record of success includes over 400 cases in the past five years
We handle every case with the compassionate advocacy and personalized strategies of a small-town law firm with the network of resources and technology of large-city firms. We are fluent in Spanish and welcome our Spanish-speaking clients regardless of their migrant status.
At Wawi Tijerina Law, we offer free consultations and charge no upfront fees. Instead, we only get paid after we obtain your compensation.
What Types of Personal Injury Cases Does Wawi Tijerina Law Handle?
When a person or business fails to take reasonable care to prevent causing injury to others—like avoiding distractions and following traffic laws while driving, or promptly repairing a broken stair riser in a business—an injury victim should not be left responsible for the economic and non-economic damages that result. Common personal injury cases in Laredo include the following:
- Car accidents
- Commercial truck accidents
- Pedestrian and bicycle accidents
- Slip-and-fall accidents
- Workplace injuries
- Dog bite/attacks
- Medical malpractice
- Defective product injuries
- Wrongful death
Any serious injury also has serious consequences, including expensive medical bills and weeks or months of lost pay. Some injuries are catastrophic and end with permanent disability or wrongful death. When the injury was preventable if only someone else had taken reasonable action, it’s important to hold them legally responsible through a personal injury claim. Compensation in these cases typically comes from the at-fault party’s insurance, like auto insurance in a car accident claim or commercial liability insurance after a slip-and-fall accident.
Auto accidents commonly cause serious injuries — contact a car accident attorney in Laredo today for any necessary legal assistance.
Common Injuries in Laredo Personal Injury Claims
If you trip on broken cement in a parking lot and dust yourself off with nothing but embarrassment, you can go on with your day, but what if you trip in a big box store parking lot and suffer a complex knee fracture requiring surgery and months of rehabilitation? In these cases, a successful personal injury claim may be able to hold the store accountable for your injury-related expenses and pain and suffering. Common injuries in personal injury claims in Laredo include the following:
- Fractures
- Head injuries/traumatic brain injuries
- Back injuries
- Neck injuries
- Shoulder injuries
- Knee Injuries
- Internal organ injuries
- Burns
- Spinal cord injury
- Facial trauma/disfigurement
- Soft-tissue injuries
- Lacerations, contusions, and abrasions
If a personal injury ends in the wrongful death of a loved one, a Laredo wrongful death lawyer from the Law Firm of Wawi Tijerina is ready to help close grieving family members recover compensation.
Proving Liability in a Texas Personal Injury Claim
Texas is a modified comparison negligence insurance state requiring injury victims to prove a negligent party’s fault for the accident through a preponderance of the evidence. A Texas personal injury lawyer will investigate all aspects of your injury, document evidence, and take a compelling case to the appropriate insurance company. Proving liability for a personal injury requires showing the following:
- The at-fault party owed a duty of reasonable care to prevent causing injuries to others
- They breached this duty of care through negligent, reckless, or wrongful actions
- Their breach of duty directly caused injury to the victim
- The injury victim suffered significant economic and non-economic damages from their injury
After documenting evidence and carefully calculating the injury victim’s damages, a Texas personal injury lawyer begins negotiating for the highest possible settlement. Only a minority of cases require litigating in court when an insurance company disputes, delays, or wrongfully denies a valid claim and the case must go to a jury to decide.
What Does an Attorney Do to Help In a Laredo Personal Injury Case?
Insurance companies are private businesses that protect their profits—at an injury victim’s expense. An attorney on your side to aggressively represent your best interests and assert your rights helps to protect against common insurance company tactics. These often include reaching out to injury victims with early settlement offers before the injured person knows the full extent of their damages, or disputing the necessity of a doctor’s recommended treatment. Your attorney from Wawi Tijerina Law will do the following:
- Handle all communication with the insurance company and the insurance adjuster assigned to your case
- Protect your best interests throughout the process, including while investigating the cause of your injury, compiling evidence of liability, and carefully calculating damages
- Consult with medical experts about the short and long-term impacts of your injury on your life and the amount of pain you’re likely to experience until you reach your maximum medical improvement
- Send an evidence-backed demand package to the insurance company
- Assert your best interests during negotiations with the insurance adjuster assigned to your case
- Attend mediation sessions if necessary to achieve the highest possible settlement offer
If the insurance company of the at-fault party fails to offer an ample settlement for your damages, your attorney from Wawi Tijerina Law will file a petition to take the matter to court within the deadline set by the statute of limitations in Texas.
What If the Insurance Company Says I’m Partly at Fault for My Injury?
Texas has a modified comparative negligence insurance system. Under this system, even injury victims who are partly at fault for their injuries can recover compensation as long as they are less than 51% at fault. Under Texas § 33.001. the law states the following:
“In an action to which this chapter applies, a claimant may not recover damages if his percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent.”
The insurance company may determine that an injury victim contributed to their injury. In this case, they subtract the injury victim’s percentage of fault from the amount they pay on their compensation claim. If the claim is for $100,000, but they find the injury victim as 25% at fault, they only have to pay $75,000. Below is an example of how this works:
Imagine a person walks into a Dollar General Store on a rainy day and takes a bad fall in the doorway because the floor is wet and there are no absorbent mats in place. The store also failed to warn customers by placing wet floor signs nearby. It would seem that the store is completely at fault and would have to pay full compensation. However, the insurance adjuster could determine that the slip-and-fall victim contributed to the fall because they were wearing flip-flops in the rain. Potentially, they could assign the injury victim 25% of the fault.
The comparative negligence system may benefit some injury victims by allowing them to recover compensation even if they contributed to the injury, but it may also incentivize the insurance company to find ways to claim the injured person is at fault or partly responsible for their injury to reduce the amount they have to pay out on the claim.
An assertive personal injury lawyer helps defend against these and other tactics.
How To Protect Yourself After a Personal Injury In Texas
After a serious injury, it’s difficult to keep a cool head and take purposeful action, but a few simple steps using a phone can help prove liability later and protect against insurance companies that try to assign an undue percentage of fault. Unless you are unconscious or incapacitated, using your cell phone is often possible without moving from your position or causing further injury. If you have a family member or friend with you during the incident, you can also ask them to use your phone or theirs. After the injury or accident, do the following:
- First call 911 for an ambulance if the injuries are serious, otherwise, call to arrange transportation directly to an emergency room or urgent care center
- Request the police if the injury resulted from a car accident or act of violence
- If the injury occurred in a commercial business, ask for the manager or owner to fill out an accident report
- Use your phone’s camera to snap photos of anything relevant to the cause of the injury, such as a broken balcony stair riser or the damaged vehicles in a car accident
- Take photos of any visible injuries
- Add the contact name of anyone involved in the injury and of eyewitnesses
- If there are security cameras that captured the incident, ask the owner to save the images
Always go directly to the hospital for emergency medical care and ask for a full examination and detailed medical report. Then, carefully follow your doctor’s instructions. Hire an experienced Laredo personal injury lawyer before accepting an early settlement from the insurance company or dealing with the insurance company.
What Damages Can I Recover In a Personal Injury Case in Laredo?
Because injuries can quickly cause financial hardship for victims and their families, the attorneys at Wawi Tijerina Law always seek the maximum compensation available for common personal injury claim damages such as the following:
- Reimbursement for medical expenses
- Compensation for future medical costs related to the injury
- Income loss
- Out-of-pocket expenses
- Diminished earning capacity
- Pain and suffering compensation
- Compensation for other non-economic damages that apply in some cases, such as disfigurement, loss of limb, loss of vision or hearing, or diminished quality of life
Family members may recover additional compensation in a personal injury wrongful death case with damages such as funeral expenses and loss of income and benefits due to a provider’s death.
Do I Have to Go to Court for a Personal Injury Claim In Texas?
Nearly 95% of personal injury claims are resolved without the need for court—especially when a skilled attorney makes a compelling case proving liability and damages. Only when an insurance company fails to offer an ample settlement does the case require litigation in court with a judge and jury. Trying a personal injury case in court extends the timeline for recovering compensation but juries are often sympathetic to injury victims and issue positive verdicts with generous compensation.
If a case must go to court, the injury victim (plaintiff) must file the case against the defendant within the state’s statute of limitations for personal injury claims.
What Is the Statute of Limitations for Texas Personal Injury Cases?
Like all states, Texas sets a time limit for filing a personal injury lawsuit and litigating the matter in court. This helps to ensure that evidence remains available and eyewitness testimony is still reliable in the case. In Texas, personal injury victims have two years from the date the injury occurred in which to file a claim or lawsuit.
Certain exceptions to this time limit apply. For instance, when an injury occurs to a minor, they have until two years after their 18th birthday to file an injury claim against an at-fault party. The state might also extend the statute of limitations for the delayed discovery of an injury or if the injury victim was incapacitated until some time later.
Call the Compassionate Client Advocates for Personal Injury Victims in Laredo
Seeking the compensation you deserve after a personal injury caused by someone else can feel overwhelming, particularly when you’re also facing painful injuries and a lengthy recovery process. With Wawi Tijerina Law, you are not alone. We are the client advocates who get results in personal injury claims in Laredo and the surrounding area.
Contact Wawi Tijerina Law today so we can begin a strong legal strategy for your financial compensation while you focus on your recovery. Call or text us at (956) 489-1300 to get started today.