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The DC knee injury lawyers at Gelb & Gelb have been helping victims of various accidents for over 71 years. We know knee injuries can be devastating. They often result in long-term pain, limited mobility, and significant medical expenses. Perhaps the trickiest part of a knee injury case is that you do not know when your knee injury will flare up. Our job is to calculate future damages, not just past and current. Below, we detail compensation for various knee injuries. However, this is typically not something done with the help of an expert witness like an orthopedic surgeon. Consulting with one increases our expenses as we pay them hourly. Thus, we will use your medical records to dictate any future damages you will suffer without increasing your cost by hiring an expert when possible.
When you realize how much a knee injury impacts your quality of life and ability to work in many cases, you understand the value of hiring a DC knee injury lawyer. Insurance companies often try to downplay the severity of these injuries. They may state that there is no tear or break in your knee. Thus, the injury must not be that bad. However, a knee injury is worse than most injuries because it affects you whenever you need to go somewhere. This is unlike a wrist injury, which you can rest for as long as you need without using it. For a knee injury, you have to move. If you do severely restrict your movement, this is more detrimental to your quality of life than a wrist injury.
If you suffer a knee injury due to someone else’s negligent conduct, call Gelb & Gelb today for a free consultation.
There are countless causes of knee injuries in Washington, DC. Our DC knee injury lawyers handle all types of negligence cases. However, the key is that there must be a source of recovery. This is why a motor vehicle accident, for example, is a common cause of action for personal injury attorneys. Otherwise, we may come to a settlement agreement if we threaten to sue an individual without insurance. You can waive your right to sue the defendant for that particular act of negligence in exchange for compensation we deem just, say $75,000. However, that does not mean the defendant has $75,000 in cash available or that he will pay. We can sue for breach of contract.
Or, we can sue for the original cause of action and get a $75,000 judgment. In either event, it is improbable that we will recover the $75,000 you are owed for your knee injury. That is the nature of personal injury cases without insurance. Below, we highlight four common causes of knee injuries in DC accidents that do have insurance and allow you to recover for your injuries.
For a DC knee injury lawyer, a car accident is the most common way to recover for your bills and pain. It is also the accident type that DC Superior Court judges are most familiar with when ruling over a personal injury matter. Moreover, there is an abundance of expert witnesses available should we have to litigate your case. So, how does a car accident injure your knee? The impact of a crash can cause direct trauma to the knee, particularly in head-on or side-impact collisions, where a driver or passenger’s knee hits the dashboard.
Especially when a driver or front-seat passenger’s seat is not properly adjusted, they may bang their knee on the inside of the car. Or, if you have longer legs and are sitting in the back rows behind a seat that is too far back, that is another way to injure your legs. If we go to trial, the defense could argue that this is not the defendant’s fault. However, the law does not support this defense and is one our DC knee injury lawyers regularly defeat.
Uneven sidewalks, wet floors, and icy walkways frequently lead to falls, causing knee fractures, ligament tears, and dislocations. Proving liability in a slip and fall case can be difficult due to the requirements to establish liability. However, the injuries that result from a slip and fall can be severe. Thus, it is always worth consulting with a DC knee injury lawyer to better understand your options. It is common to injure your knee while slipping as you try to hold yourself up against the force of the slip. This can strain and even tear your knee, depending on the force from the slip and how fast you were walking. This is especially pervasive on ice or wet surfaces. Although, if you are looking to make a claim against the DC government with help from a DC knee injury attorney, it is best to consult legal assistance immediately.
Strict deadlines attach for claims due to negligent maintenance of sidewalks. As bad as slip and fall cases can be, a silver lining may exist. If you fall in a grocery store, restaurant, bar, or some other private place, there is likely insurance to cover your damages. Then, our DC knee injury lawyers will work to prove liability and maximize your compensation.
A pedestrian accident is when a motor vehicle hits you as a pedestrian. This is not as good of a case from a recovery standpoint for a few reasons. First, there is little or no coverage available if you are a pedestrian. Unfortunately, the negligent driver may subsequently commit a criminal act and flee the scene after hitting you. Not only is this illegal, but you may be unable to get any information from the driver.
If you are quick, you can snap a picture of the vehicle’s license plate. If the vehicle is not stolen, you may be able to use the insurance on that vehicle. But after a pedestrian accident, you often are in no position to get that picture in time. Moreover, after a knee injury, you may not even be able to get up. Thus, your only source of recovery is your own auto insurance as an uninsured motorist claim.
A scooter accident is among Washington, DC’s most common causes of knee injuries. Electric scooters have become commonplace. Further, you can drive an electric scooter on most of DC sidewalks. Unfortunately, our DC knee injury lawyers observe more accidents and injuries as things become more common. Fortunately, we are here to help. When someone falls off an electric scooter, they instinctively brace for impact. Naturally, this injures your wrist, elbow, and knee if you fall all the way. But you can also tear your knee trying to land and catch yourself. Even if you do not get hit by another vehicle or person, just a simple collision can cause severe knee injuries. Unfortunately, there is not always a source of recovery for this type of injury.
Moreover, without physical evidence of a collision like there is with a wreck with an automobile, proving that the accident occurred is more difficult. This is especially true if your collision is with a pedestrian. Fortunately, our DC knee injury lawyers have decades of experience handling this. Contact our office today for a free consultation for your knee injury after a scooter accident.
A DC knee injury lawyer will represent you for nearly any type of knee injury so long as it has value worth pursuing and there is a source of recovery. Of course, it must also have legitimacy capable of surviving defenses like statute of limitations or contributory negligence.
A ligament tear occurs most commonly due to a sudden twist or hyperextension. Hyperextension is most common while riding a bicycle or electric scooter, or slipping and falling on a wet surface. A ligament tear is one of the worst injuries you can suffer on your knee. A torn ligament may require surgery and several months of physical therapy. What does this mean for your personal injury case? A DC knee injury lawyer representing you for a ligament tear due to someone else’s negligence will immediately consider how much coverage is available to pay your medical expenses. As you may imagine, knee surgery and extensive physical therapy are expensive. Moreover, you are entitled to compensation for months or years of physical pain and inability to participate in everyday activities.
The meniscus is a piece of cartilage in the knee joint. The meniscus is shaped like a “C” and cushions between your shinbone and thighbone. If you are a sports fan, you may have heard of a torn meniscus. Every person has four menisci, two in each knee. However, a meniscus tear does not always cause symptoms like other knee injuries. In more severe cases, you may hear a pop; that is your meniscus tearing. But in other cases, it may take several hours for you even to notice pain or discomfort. This is because it is taking time for fluid to accumulate in the knee.
Eventually, it swells enough for you to notice. Our DC knee injury lawyers have represented many clients who have not required knee surgery despite a meniscus tear. Sometimes, physical therapy is sufficient to recover fully. In worse cases, you may require surgery when pain persists. If you tear your meniscus due to someone else’s negligent, reckless, or intentional conduct, contact a DC knee injury law firm today.
The patellar tendon is also known as your kneecap. Patellar injuries are common. One may get patellar tendinitis from jumping. This is most common in athletes whose sports involve frequent jumping. A patellar fracture in a personal injury case may occur when you are in a motor vehicle accident and slam your knee into either the seat in front of you or the dashboard. As you can imagine, the pain that results from this injury can be debilitating. Even the slightest contact with a broken kneecap can cause excruciating pain. And it is hard to completely avoid contact with your kneecap.
In some of the more unique cases, our DC knee injury lawyers have won over the years for a patellar fracture, and you may have a claim if something flies towards you and strikes you in the knee. Of course, we must determine whether the item thrown towards you was due to someone’s negligence and whether insurance coverage or other assets will be available.
A forceful impact can knock the kneecap or joint out of place, leading to severe pain and instability. The recovery time for a dislocation is not as bad as for the other knee injuries we discuss here. Nevertheless, you may need at least a month of physical therapy to fully recover from a dislocation and to be proactive in ensuring pain will not return in the future.
Bursitis and tendonitis are simply inflammation in your knee. This is a soft tissue injury and is less likely to be related to a personal injury case. Generally, inflammation takes a while to build up. It will not occur from a single act of negligence.
Post-traumatic arthritis displays similar symptoms to tendonitis, but it is related to a personal injury incident. Following a severe knee injury, some individuals develop arthritis, leading to chronic pain and reduced mobility. We use arthritis as a general term, which refers to mere soreness. When you are sore for any period of time, you have a viable claim for your pain and suffering so long as we can establish negligence against the defendant.
The more medical treatment you receive and the longer you are in treatment, the more monetary value your personal injury case has. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, all medical expenses are compensable so long as they are causally related to the act of negligence and are reasonable means of treatment. So, if you receive $100,000 in medical treatment, you are entitled to at least $100,000 for past medical expenses. Of course, you may also have a claim for future medical treatment. But remember, just because you are entitled to this amount does not mean you will receive it through the defendant. There is likely a limit to how much insurance is available. The second element of your damages is temporal.
The longer you treat your knee injury with a physical therapy clinic or chiropractor, the longer a judge or jury can infer that you have suffered pain. Of course, this is not the only metric. However, it is the most convincing metric to a fact-finder. Below, we review treatment options you may consider with help from a DC knee injury lawyer and a medical professional:
A DC knee injury lawyer at Gelb & Gelb will fight to maximize your recovery. Thus, we consider all options under the law to get you as much money as possible. We consider past and future medical expenses related to your knee injury. The critical aspect of getting reimbursement for medical expenses is that the medical records must mention the act of negligence for which we are suing. If you contact our office and tell us you were in the hospital for a month and want reimbursement for that hospital bill, we will do our due diligence and review those medical records. If those records instead blame another issue for your hospital visit and not your knee injury, it is unrelated to your personal injury case, and we cannot include it in your claim. Unfortunately, this does happen.
However, the insurance companies know better than to believe this, which is not what the law says. Accordingly, a judge will quickly strike down your claim. We will also claim your lost wages and loss of future earning capacity. If you suffer a knee injury in Washington, DC, you may be unable to continue working the same job. Unfortunately, you may then have to take a lower paying job. It is unfair to you to have to take a lower paying job due to someone else’s negligence. We can include the difference in income in your claim. Our DC knee injury attorneys will calculate the difference in salaries and multiply it by the number of years you have left to work. Of course, a doctor must have written into your records and be willing to testify that you have a permanent injury to make this argument.
If your knee injury leads to permanent impairment, you may receive compensation for ongoing care and necessary accommodations. This falls under future damages. However, we must still account for the diminished quality of life you will suffer because of the pain. You no longer can participate in your favorite hobbies. Perhaps you enjoyed playing pickup basketball with friends. You can no longer enjoy this for the rest of your life. Our legal team is dedicated to ensuring you receive payment for this loss.
Unlike the monetary damages above, pain and suffering damages account for your non-economic damages. These are more tricky to calculate because no set amount is due for a knee injury. One judge in Washington, DC, may award $25,000, while the next may award $35,000 for pain and suffering. As it is so difficult to estimate, this is where DC knee injury lawyers’ decades of experience come into play. When you suffer a knee injury, you have damages for chronic pain, limited mobility, and diminished quality of life.
The damages we covered above constitute your bodily injury claim. That is the personal injury portion of your case. When a DC knee injury lawyer charges a personal injury fee contingent on your recovery, we refer to the bodily injury portion of your damages. We are not referring to the property damage claim. However, you are still entitled to make a property damage claim. If you are in a motor vehicle accident, the defendant’s insurance should cover the cost of repairing your vehicle. Then, we will also make a personal injury claim for your knee.
If you are in a pedestrian accident and your phone breaks because you are hit by a vehicle, you can make a property damage claim for your broken phone. Contact a DC knee injury attorney for these and any other property damages to discuss your options.
Our DC knee injury lawyers encounter countless challenges in proving claims in the District. Our clients come to us with these challenges, asking us to resolve them to maximize their compensation.
Gelb & Gelb has been handling knee injury cases in Washington, DC, for over 71 years. Call our team of DC knee injury lawyers today for a free consultation at (202) 331-7227.
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