Injury Attorney in St. Louis
Injury Attorney St. Louis. What are you supposed to do when your life is disrupted and your well-being hindered by a preventable accident all because someone else was negligent or careless? When you are suddenly faced with medical bills, lost wages from missing work, pain and suffering, and other losses related to your accident that happened through no fault of your own, you deserve to make a full recovery. A skilled injury attorney in St. Louis will fight on your behalf and make sure those people responsible pay for the damages they have caused you. Someone else’s careless mistake or willful act of harm should not have the power to permanently derail your life. Our injury attorneys in St. Louis make sure you see justice.
Combs Waterkotte is a St. Louis injury law firm dedicated to protecting people from injustices and helping those injured in St. Louis or anywhere in Missouri receive just compensation so they can heal and move forward in life after their accident. If you have been injured in any type of accident caused by another person, call an injury attorney with Combs Waterkotte right away at (314) 900-HELP or fill out this form now.
Do I need an injury attorney?
If you have been injured due to another person’s behavior, you deserve to be made whole again. Missouri law gives you a chance to do just that in the form of payment for your losses. In order to be compensated for your injury and associated losses — collectively known as damages — caused by a negligent party, you must file a Missouri personal injury claim. In most cases, you will need to hire an injury attorney to represent you and ensure that you receive maximum compensation for your damages.
In general, if you were injured to the point of needing medical attention, you should hire an injury attorney to ensure you receive full compensation. If there are any legal questions, such as who is liable or whether you are partially responsible, turn to the legal expertise of a reputable St. Louis injury attorney. We will help you get the settlement you deserve. If you are unsure whether you need an injury attorney or believe you need a lawyer but don’t know where to start, call (314) 900-HELP or send a message today for a free consultation with a Combs Waterkotte St. Louis injury attorney. We will help you make sense of your situation and determine the best next steps to take toward your recovery.
As your injury attorney, we call upon our network of experts to figure out what your claim is worth, gather all available evidence to build your case, handle all communication on your behalf, support and advocate for you, demand a fair settlement and go to trial if we have to. Let a legal expert handle your case and maximize your chances of an excellent settlement while you rest, heal from your injuries, and get back to life as you know it. For your best chance of a full recovery without any upfront fees, contact an injury attorney at Combs Waterkotte today. We will be your legal advocate, dedicated to bringing you justice and making you whole through compensation for your damages.
Types of Cases Our St. Louis Injury Attorneys Take
Irrespective of the specifics, when someone else’s negligent actions leave you seriously injured, you deserve to make a complete physical and financial recovery. In most cases, you need a skilled St. Louis injury attorney on your case for that to happen. An injury attorney with experience holding negligent people accountable and making sure insurance companies pay victims in full for their damages can do the same for you.
Our injury attorneys have more than a decade of combined experience fighting for the rights of the injured and successfully negotiating full settlements for people like you who have been victims of negligence in St. Louis or anywhere in Missouri. Learn more about some of the areas we specialize in below.
Car Accidents
Approximately three million people in the United States are injured in car accidents every year, leading to 2.5 million emergency room visits and billions of dollars in medical costs, lost wages and property damage. 77% of injuries from car accidents occur in collisions between two more more vehicles (as opposed to single-vehicle crashes, when the driver runs into a fix object or rolls over). This means that if you were injured in a car accident, there is a good chance that someone is at fault.
If you were seriously injured in a car accident in Missouri, speak to an injury attorney in St. Louis right away. Whether you suffered multiple broken bones, whiplash or permanent paralysis, you deserve a full recovery for your injuries and other damages. It takes the negotiating skill and legal acumen of an experienced St. Louis injury attorney to help you win your St. Louis car accident claim. Combs Waterkotte’s injury attorneys have expertise in drunk driving accidents, hit and run collisions, distracted driving crashes, speeding accidents and other types of St. Louis car wrecks.
Truck Accidents
Most of the time commercial truck drivers are careful and responsible drivers, but when someone messes up and causes you to get in an accident with an 18-wheeler or even a St. Louis Metro bus, the devastation is extreme. If you are in one of the more than 100,000 people injured in the approximately 90,000 truck crashes that result in injuries in the United States every year, it is imperative that you hire a trusted St. Louis injury attorney right away.
Truck accidents are unique in terms of personal injury cases in Missouri. This is due to factors like the variety of potentially liable parties in your truck crash, federal regulations by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that govern commercial truck operation, and the sheer size and stopping distance of big rigs and other large trucks that make them so devastatingly destructive. After your truck accident, call speak to an injury attorney in St. Louis at (314) 900-HELP right away.
Motorcycle Accidents
It is hard to resist the bliss and freedom of feeling the wind on your face on a motorcycle ride. If you ride a motorcycle, all you can do is do your part to ride safely and follow the rules of the road — just as any driver should. However, the majority of motorcycle accidents that cause injuries in Missouri and the United States are the fault of the other driver. In fact, about 66% of motorcycle accidents are caused by another vehicle — most often a regular passenger vehicle — failing to yield to the motorcycle’s right of way. The vast majority of multi-vehicle motorcycle accidents result in the motorcycle rider being injured.
As a motorcycle rider, you can protect yourself and minimize the chance of permanent injuries or death in an accident by wearing a helmet, following the rules of the road, and knowing and avoiding other drivers’ blind spots. Helmet use saved more than 25,000 lives between 2002 and 2015. If your life has been disrupted by a motorcycle accident that wasn’t your fault, an injury attorney in St. Louis will work for you to maximize your recovery and help you seek justice. Our team of accomplished injury attorneys will begin working on your case right away.
Bicycle and Pedestrian Accidents
When the weather is nice in St. Louis, walking and bicycling are great ways to get around and serve as excellent sources of exercise and pastimes. However, when passing through or traveling near a road intersection, vehicle driver negligence can turn the situation dangerous or even deadly for pedestrians and bicyclists. Every year, about 130,000 bicyclists are injured in traffic accidents, and another 137,000 pedestrians are injured.
It does not take a rocket scientist or vehicle crash specialist to know that a human body, either on foot or on the slight metal frame of a bicycle, is no match against a passenger vehicle, truck or even a fixed object. The injuries of a bike rider or pedestrian struck by a car are nearly always significant. Hire an injury attorney from Combs Waterkotte in St. Louis right away if you are injured in a bicycle or pedestrian traffic accident. Be sure to seek emergency medical care and let our St. Louis injury attorneys take care of the rest.
Dog Bites
The vast majority of us love dogs or can at least appreciate their better qualities: loyalty, obedience, intelligence, irresistible cuteness. Unfortunately, dogs are animals, and sometimes they bite. You may have an injury claim if you were bit and injured by a dog. With the help of a Combs Waterkotte dog bite injury attorney in St. Louis, you can receive a full settlement for the losses you suffered as a result of that dog bite.
An astounding 4.5 million people are bit by dogs every year, producing 800,000 dog bite victims that are injured to the point of requiring medical care. Most commonly, dogs bite because they feel threatened, startled or sick. Generally speaking, under Missouri law, you can only recover damages in a dog bite injury claim if the dog bite was unprovoked. Your Combs Waterkotte St. Louis injury attorney will investigate your case to determine whether you have a legitimate claim and build an argument to get you full compensation.
Defective Products
Manufacuturers owe consumers a duty of care to ensure that their products are safe for their intended use. When a manufacturer in the US sells a product that is later found to be defective or dangerous, they are to remove the product from the market and fairly compensate anyone who was harmed or damaged by the product. It is important to find an injury attorney in St. Louis who has experience representing victims of defective products through product liability claims. Discuss your product liability case with a Combs Waterkotte injury attorney in St. Louis now.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is the federal agency charged with enforcing standards and banning or recalling products that are dangerous to consumers. Anything from cleaning products to automotive components, clothing, cosmetics, and many other categories of products may be recalled. Data tells us that the most common injury-causing consumer products are homewares like chairs, mattresses, stairs, and other furniture and fixtures.
The FDA is responsible for enforcing good manufacturing practices and issuing recalls for dangerous food and pharmaceutical goods , including an average of nearly 3,000 defective medical devices per year, including 3,202 in 2017. If a medical or consumer product seriously injured you or a loved one, you might have a product liability claim against the manufacturer or other involved parties. Your St. Louis injury attorney will help you receive a fair settlement through a premises liability claim.
Dangerous Property Conditions
Property owners or those in control of properties have a duty to keep visitors safe from harm. If there is a dangerous condition on a property left unaddressed or without any warning or indicator that causes you to get hurt, you may have a Missouri product liability claim. An injury attorney will hold the property owner accountable for their negligence and help you secure compensation for your damages.
Premises liability claims can arise from a number of dangerous conditions on a property. Common causes of premises liability claims our injury attorneys see include:
- Animal attacks
- Slips and falls from wet floors, obstructions, holes, poor lighting, and other causes
- Inadequate security
- Swimming pool accidents
- Land disrepair and poor maintenance
- Hazards that are not properly marked
- Children not properly supervised
- Retail store injuries
- Restaurant injuries
When a landowner knew or should have known of a dangerous condition on their property and failed to fix the hazard or provide a warning in a reasonable amount of time, they are liable for your injuries. Our compassionate St. Louis premises liability injury attorney team will demand that the property owner pay when their negligence leads to your injuries and other damages.
How Much Can an Injury Attorney Get Me for My Injuries?
The value of your claim and the dollar amount of your settlement in your Missouri personal injury case depends on numerous factors. Each case is unique, so it is important to speak with an injury attorney as soon as possible after you have been injured to understand your legal options and the amount of compensation you can expect to receive.
A talented St. Louis injury attorney can maximize your financial recovery for your injuries, but you have to evaluate your case based on its unique merits. Our injury attorneys protect people from being taken advantage of, including those who have been injured by the actions of others. We will not agree to take on your case unless we are confident that we can add value, meaning that we would help you receive a better outcome and more money than you would likely receive on your own, taking into consideration our fees. We work on a contingency fee basis, so you will not pay us anything until you receive your settlement.
The exact settlement amount you receive in your St. Louis injury case depends on many variables. However, the following have a direct influence on the amount of compensation you can receive.
- The severity of your damages – This includes economic damages like medical bills and lost wages as well as non-economic damages like mental anguish and scarring and disfigurement. Your injury attorney will collect all documentation of your damages and call upon experts to help them calculate an accurate dollar value for your total damages. The average medical costs for car accident injury victims, for example, is $3,300 in emergency department visits and $57,000 in lifetime medical care. Keep your medical bills and work with your injury attorney to calculate your total damages.
- Insurance policy limits – In the majority of personal injury cases, it is the defendant’s insurance company that foots the bill. Insurance policies have a limit or a cap on what they will pay out per injured person and per incident. Each state has its own laws on the minimum dollar amount insurance policy limits must reach. In Missouri for motor vehicle policies, these minimum caps are:
- $25,000 per person for bodily injury
- $50,000 per accident for bodily injury
- $25,000 per accident for property damage
If the negligent person who caused your accident has standard insurance coverage with the lowest possible limit allowed by the state of Missouri, that means you will not be able to recover more than $25,000 from that insurance policy for your injuries. However, there may be other ways to maximize your financial recovery. Look to your St. Louis injury attorney’s expertise to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve.
- Your injury attorney – Having professional legal representation at all will positively affect the outcome of your case, assuming you sustained injuries that necessitated medical care. Insurance companies never offer a fair, complete settlement on their own. They are known to trick injury victims unfamiliar with personal injury civil law. They may deny responsibility altogether or even try to blame you for the accident. Even after accounting for typical injury attorney fees, injury victims receive an average of three times higher settlement payment when they have a lawyer compared to those who represent themselves. When you hire the right experienced, dedicated, compassionate injury attorney, you have a better chance of getting maximum compensation.
Hire an Injury Attorney in St. Louis | Combs Waterkotte
Get the settlement and recovery you deserve after someone’s negligence causes you harm. Whether you were in a car accident, bicycle accident, dog bite attack, slip and fall or other kind of accident that wasn’t your fault, you should receive full compensation for your damages. Our St. Louis injury attorneys make that possible. Win your personal injury claim and get an excellent settlement that allows you to move on from your injuries by hiring an accident attorney with Combs Waterkotte today.
Learn more about the expertise of our firm by exploring our recent victories or client testimonials or contact us now to speak to an injury attorney for free. Let us defend your rights against the insurance companies and help you get the compensation you deserve. Call (314) 900-HELP now.