Personal Injury Claims vs Property Damage Claims

What Is Personal Injury?

Personal injury lawyers help people who have been injured due to the negligence of another person. So, if you get into a car accident and you need an attorney to help you, you’d be looking for a personal injury attorney. Personal injury attorneys give free consultations to help potential clients determine whether or not filing a claim would be in their best interest. If you’ve got a claim, you won’t have to pay your personal injury attorney out of pocket. Instead, they’ll take your case on contingency. This means that they don’t get paid unless you get a settlement or judgment in your favor. If you hire a personal injury attorney to help you with your personal injury claim, you won’t have to pay anything out of pocket since a portion of your settlement will cover all of your legal fees. Typically, personal injury attorneys don’t deal with property damage claims.

What Is Property Damage?

Property damage claims work differently. If someone damages your property through their negligent conduct, you can file a claim against them. For example, if your dog is tied up in your back yard and a neighbor’s aggressive, off leash dog gets into your yard and attacks your dog, you probably have property damage. Although your dog may be your fur baby, s/he is technically considered property in the eyes of the law, and you’d have a claim against the owner of the aggressive dog for the injuries caused to your dog. With property damage claims, you’d hire a civil attorney. When it comes to property damage claims, each attorney will structure payment differently, however you’ll likely have to pay out of pocket.

Who Pays for Property Damage?

The person whose negligence caused the damage ought to pay for the property damage. This means that either their auto or homeowners insurance will pay on their behalf, or if they don’t have insurance, they would have to pay for it themselves out of pocket. This can be a problem if the person being sued doesn’t have the assets to cover the property damage. Therefore, you could be paying a lawyer a lot of money only to attempt to get blood from a turnip. Another problem with property damage claims is that it’s difficult to get out of small claims court. If you’ve got a claim that’s not worth very much, you would likely be paying the attorney as much to help you as you are hoping to recover at trial. You could pursue the claim yourself in small claims court. In some states, all civil claims worth less than $15,000 are to be dealt with in small claims court where plaintiffs represent themselves.

The Moxie Difference

At Moxie Law Group, we handle property damages alongside your personal injury claim—even if your property damage claim does not exceed the small claims court’s limit for your state. More importantly, we do not take anything from your property damage claim in order to cover your legal fees, nor do we ask you to pay upfront for our help with your property damage claim. At Moxie Law Group, we care about our clients’ success, and we want to help them get the compensation they need for the damages they’ve suffered due to the negligence of another person. That’s Moxie.

The Consultation Is Free

At Moxie Law Group, we offer our potential clients a free consultation to help them explore their options and determine whether or not it’s in their best interests to pursue a personal injury claim. If you’ve sustained injury in an accident and you’re considering filing a claim, Moxie Law Group is here for you.