Idaho’s laws in regard to personal injury will be very similar to those in all other states of the nation. However, there will be some differences in both law and the attitudes of the courts from state to state, even region to region.
Even from one city to another, there is the possibility of encountering minor differences in law, and you are almost certain to run into differing dispositions and attitudes from one jurisdictional region to the next. As such, an Idaho personal injury lawyer that has experience practicing in the area where you were injured would be the best act to take upon being injured in Idaho.
Types of Personal Injuries
The term “personal injury” is pretty broad and includes several types of injuries. Specifically (and legally), it includes all injuries that occur to you personally and includes both physical and psychological (including emotional damage) injury and applies whether the injury was sustained through another intentionally, negligently, or by accident.
In other words, personal injury includes both physical injury to your body, as well as emotional injury resulting from distress, humiliation, depression, and other similar situations that are caused through the actions of others or through the negligence of others.
Negligence cases will most often involve a form of physical injury, though psychological damages will often be claimed in association with the physical.
As an example, if you were attending a public event (concert, sports event, or simply shopping at the local grocery store) then slipped and fell due to a failure to maintain the grounds (ice or snow that hasn’t been cleared, banana peels or other garbage that hasn’t been cleared, etc.) and break your arm, then personal injury could include both the broken arm as well as the humiliation suffered from falling in public.
If you were to break your watch or tear up your new boots however, this would not be included as part of any claim of personal injury.
Emotional harm can further include slander, false arrest, libel, character defamation and more.
Variations of this law that pertain to Idaho can be reviewed by an Idaho personal injury lawyer to ensure that you are able to take full advantage of any and all claims of personal injury and have the full force of the law on your side.
Preparing to Meet Your Idaho Personal Injury Lawyer
In many personal injury cases where the fault is very clear or an attorney feels highly confident about winning, they may work out an agreement that give them a percentage of the money won in a personal-injury lawsuit (usually around 33 percent) rather than charging you for time.
However, if that is not the case, you will be charged by time. Whether you are contacting your lawyer for the first time, asking for simple advice, or asking what to bring for a meeting, you will likely be charged an attorney’s fee. Minimizing your costs will be beneficial to you as you will receive a larger amount of the claim the less you use up your attorney’s time.
One of the most important things you can do to save both yourself and your attorney time (which will save you money) is write up a detailed story that describes exactly how you sustained your physical injuries as well as any distress or other psychological effects that you have suffered as a result.
Be sure to include details leading up to the event, and pertinent details that happen afterward (especially anything that caused emotional distress such harassing phone calls after the injury took place, undue pressure to settle from the party at fault, humiliation you felt due to the injury being witnessed, etc.) and all details that you can think of, even if you think it might hurt your case.
Your lawyer will do everything he or she can, and withholding anything at all can hurt your case or come back to bite you later. Your lawyer is interested only in helping you with the legal aspect and isn’t there to judge you or your motives.
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