Tips for Settling a Slip and Fall Claim
Posted in Personal Injury,Premises Liability,Slip and fall on February 20, 2022
If you or somebody you care about has been injured in a slip and fall accident caused by the actions of a property owner or property manager, you may be able to recover compensation for your losses. You should be able to recover money for your medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages, and even pain and suffering damages. However, settling a slip and fall claim can be challenging. There are several tips we want to offer that may be able to help you recover a fair settlement for your Tennessee slip and fall accident.
1. Seek Medical Care Immediately
Your number one priority after sustaining a slip and fall injury is to seek medical care as soon as possible. This could include letting emergency medical services treat your injuries and take you to the hospital. However, even if you do not think your injuries are that severe, please go to a doctor and let them conduct an evaluation. It will be very difficult to secure compensation for your injuries if you do not seek medical care soon after an incident occurs.
2. Report The Incident
You need to find out who has operational control over the area where your slip and fall incident occurred and report the incident to them. For example, if the slip and fall happens in a grocery store, make sure that an employee and supervisor know that the incident occurred and that they fill out an incident report.
3. Gather And Keep Documentation And Evidence
If it is safe to do so at the scene of a slip and fall incident, we encourage you to gather as much evidence as possible. This could mean getting out your cell phone and using your camera to take photographs of everything that you see, such as the cause of the slip and fall incident, torn or wet clothing, injuries, and the location of any video surveillance cameras that you see.
If there were any eyewitnesses to the slip and fall incident, get their names and contact information written down before they leave.
4. Contact An Attorney Quickly
We encourage you to contact a skilled premises liability attorney in Nashville as soon as possible. A lawyer can use their resources to fully investigate every aspect of your claim. This will include analyzing the evidence already gathered and gathering additional evidence that is typically harder to obtain, including video surveillance footage of the incident.
5. Go To All Doctor Appointments
You need to continue to go to all medical appointments until after a doctor says you have reached maximum medical improvement. This will be the point when further medical care will likely not make a difference in the outcome of your injuries. This could mean you have made a full recovery, but this could also mean that you have sustained disability which is not likely to improve with additional medical care. If you choose to discontinue care before a doctor says you should, this could jeopardize your overall claim.
6. Do Not Take The First Settlement Offer
We encourage you to work with your lawyer when it comes to understanding whether or not an insurance settlement is sufficient. Often, insurance carriers offer meager initial settlements in an effort to get the claim over with. Initial settlement offers should be used as the starting point in negotiations for a fair amount.