If you suffer a personal injury, then it is sometimes appropriate to bring legal action against an individual or entity. If that entity or individual was liable for what happened, you are within your rights to seek compensation. You’ll need that money for things like medical bills and for any pain and suffering you have gone through.
You might be curious about the types of personal injury cases that result in the biggest settlements. Let’s go over a few of those.
Slip and Fall Cases
Jacoby and Meyers are New York, personal injury attorneys. They could tell you about slip and fall cases that resulted in big cash settlements. People sometimes bring those cases against:
- Warehouses or garden centers
- Grocery stores
- Department stores
- Pet stores
- And many other types of establishments
Any time that there are unsafe conditions, and a customer or an employee injures themselves while on a company’s property, there is the potential to bring a lawsuit. That is, of course, unless there were proper safety precautions in place and appropriate signage around the problem area.
Cancer or Other Diseases from Medications
Victims also periodically file suit against companies if they contracted cancer or other harmful conditions from a medication. Before the FDA approves a drug, a company must test it thoroughly. The medical trials often take years.
At the end of that time, the company releases the drug, operating under the assumption that it is not dangerous. There might be side effects, and the company must mention those when they advertise the medication.
However, something like cancer that the company never mentioned as a possible side effect is certainly grounds for legal action. Sometimes, lawyers will represent many individuals at once as part of a class action. That’s a way to hold the company liable so that they can square things with those they wronged as part of a blanket settlement agreement.
Cancer and Additional Diseases from Other Products
There is also the risk that you can contract cancer or other diseases from things like:
- Chemicals for farm crops
- Asbestos insulation
- Additives in everyday household products
There are instances where children have gotten cancer from exposure to asbestos in schools. The use of asbestos for insulation was common at one point, and some schools, daycares, etc. never bothered to find and remove all of it.
These children’s parents have every legal right to sue the school or other entity that endangered their young ones. Massive legal settlements sometimes result from this kind of situation.
Things like lead paint as a cancer agent are also still out there. Tenants in apartment buildings have settled for large sums because they contracted cancer. Their landlords never told them that there was a chance of lead paint that they had painted over at some point.
Medical Malpractice Suits
Medical malpractice suits are also common. These can come about in different ways. For example, if a newborn suffers damage to their head or brain because of improper forceps use, a lawsuit can easily result.
If a doctor or other hospital staff members don’t pay enough attention to a newborn in their first hours of life, when it is their duty to care for that child, then the child might die or have a serious medical issue. This is negligence, and if a court sees it that way, the hospital might have to pay millions.
Medical malpractice suits take other forms as well. An adult might sue a doctor if the doctor misread a chart and recommended unnecessary surgery. Unneeded surgeries happen much more often than you might think.
Doctors are far from infallible. They do make mistakes, and sometimes that means millions of settlement dollars.
Harassment Charges
The occurrence of workplace harassment is still all too common these days. It can happen to any individual, regardless of age, race, gender, profession, etc.
Workplace harassment is illegal, and it can be very traumatizing for the recipient. Reporting the matter to human resources rarely is sufficient to make things right. Bringing in outside arbitration sometimes works, but contacting a lawyer is also a way to go.
With a lawyer’s involvement, sometimes a company or individual will choose to settle rather than having a trial, which will be a public spectacle. Hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars can change hands in these instances. The lawyer will get their piece of that, but the wronged party will also cash in.
Of course, that money might be little comfort in the face of the trauma they had to endure. They may need therapy to get through what happened, and they might get out of that line of work altogether. Still, the wronged individual can get some satisfaction that they held those responsible accountable.
Car Accident Settlements
Car accident settlements are another area where big money can change hands as part of legal action. Many car accidents happen due to human error. When one party is clearly at fault, and the other one is not, that is grounds for a lawsuit.
The party at fault might choose to settle out of court if they feel they have little chance of winning the suit against them. They might decide to get their own lawyer and fight, but that could result in a larger cash payout if they’re on the losing end.
Car accidents with serious injuries are usually the ones where the largest settlements take place. That is because the person who was injured might not be able to go back to work. They might be too traumatized to even drive again for weeks or months, and that will make it hard for them to get around.
If any of these situations apply to you, then it is in your best interest to speak to a lawyer about your options. You might be able to hold those who inflicted your pain and suffering accountable, and that’s sure to sound good to you.
