Representing Victims of Personal Injury and Crashes
Denver Crash Lawyers
Protecting Crash Victims and Their Families
We have extensive experience in representing people who have been injured, or the families of those who have been killed, in many different types of personal injury crashes in Denver, Colorado and throughout the Front Range, including:
These crashes are the main types of cases we handle for our clients. Many crash victims initially feel that they can handle their crash claim on their own only to discover months down the road that they failed to take a step crucial to documenting their claim. We always recommend that one of the first steps a crash victim should take after seeking medical care is to call an experienced personal injury attorney.
Knowing your rights and responsibilities immediately after a crash is crucial and the main reason we wrote “The Colorado Personal Injury Claims Guidebook”. We want you to have a quick and easy reference source available to you even before you receive the first call from an insurance company.
Please click here to download your free copy of the Guidebook.
If you are involved in a crash with a commercial truck, there are many issues that are completely different from a typical auto crash. Federal regulations set specific standards for truckers and any violation of these regulations is serious evidence in a potential lawsuit. Knowing what information to ask, and where to find it, is crucial to the success of such claims. Additionally, new technology used to track trucks can help us reconstruct how a crash happened and will be very persuasive for a jury.
An experienced personal injury lawyer will be able to gather all of the evidence from the trucking company to make sure that your case value reaches its full potential. Treating these cases as a simple auto crash means that you will not receive as much as you are entitled to.
Cyclists are subject to the same rules of the road as motor vehicles. However, the problem for most cyclists is that they are much less visible than a car to other motorists. The common response I hear from drivers who have hit a cyclist is “I didn’t even see him/her”.
Even worse for cyclists is the fact that they are not surrounded by a steel cage to protect them. When they are hit by cars, their injuries are much more serious. Most of my clients injured in bike crashes have some degree of concussion or closed head injury that needs to be closely monitored. These types of injuries need to be well documented from the very beginning to make sure that the insurance company for the other driver has a full account of the injury and how long the victim had to deal with the problems of a closed head injury. In the more severe cases, it is essential that a crash victim get specialized medical attention to address these closed head injuries.
In past cases, we have represented professional cyclists, collegiate cyclists, and your average recreational riders (weekend warriors like us). Each type of case presented unique challenges that had to be overcome to make sure the client’s potential recovery was maximized.
It is very important to consult with an experienced bike crash lawyer as we can find insurance coverage for your damages from sources you might not even have considered had you attempted to handle the claim on your own. For example, did you know that you may be entitled to coverage under your own auto insurance policy if you are hit by another car while you are riding your bike?
Brian Weiss is actively involved in advocating for cyclists’ rights throughout the State and nationally. We are founding members of BikeLaw.com, a national campaign to raise awareness of local cycling laws and contribute to other local cycling advocacy organizations. Brian is also a past Board President of Team Evergreen, the largest cycling club in the state.
Please click here to download our guidebook on cyclists’ rights and responsibilities in the State of Colorado.
In most, every case that I have represented pedestrians, the at-fault driver says that they did not even see my client. In this day and age, motorists drive way too fast and often do not keep a proper lookout for people walking along streets and across intersections. I have represented people hit while walking through parking lots and even in the middle of crosswalks.
In these cases, a common issue is whether the driver’s attention was distracted in any way. When a driver is looking at a cell phone or for a parking spot in the next row, they are much less able to keep a proper lookout for pedestrians walking in front of their vehicle.
An experienced attorney will know how to prove that the driver’s attention was diverted by conducting a thorough investigation and asking the right questions.
Dealing with the loss of a family member is one of the most stressful events in life. More troubling is the fact that the true impact of the loss reverberates throughout the years and most survivors are simply unaware of the true magnitude of the financial loss that comes with the death of a spouse or parent.
It is easy to recognize the loss of income that will be realized when a wage earner in the family is lost. However, it is easy to overlook the indirect financial losses. How much does it cost to hire someone to do the odd jobs around the house that the husband did? How much does it cost to hire people to do the work around the home that the average stay-at-home mother does?
Would it surprise you to know that this is easy $70,000.00 per year? It probably would not surprise a stay-at-home mother but most people faced with the loss of their spouse simply are too distressed to consider fully ALL of the losses that they will face over the years. This is why it is very important to work with an experienced personal injury attorney when your loved one has been killed in a crash. We know the questions to ask.
Products liability is a legal term for a type of case where someone is injured due to a defective or improperly designed product. These cases are very difficult to win and usually require the attorney handling the case to seek the assistance of an engineer who can tell the jury why the product is dangerous and how it could have been designed in such a way that would have prevented an injury.
One case we handled a few years ago involved a folding camp table which was kept open by the use of several small bungee cords with metal clips on their ends (similar to a bungee cord tie-down straps). The way this table was designed made it very difficult to place the hook end into the appropriate hole without actually bending down to look at the hole as you placed the hook.
Unfortunately, this placed your face in the path of the bungee hook should you have failed to put the hook all the way through the hole. My client was a 16-year-old boy who let go of the bungee cord thinking he had hit the hole. When he let go, the cord snapped back and the metal hook hit his eye causing a permanent loss of vision in the eye. The engineer we hired for that case stated that a thirty-cent design change could have totally prevented this crash. Because of this report, we secured a very large settlement for our client.
Slip and fall cases include all types of crashes in which someone has fallen -whether this is on an icy sidewalk, defective or broken stairs, or possibly on a spill in the aisle of a grocery store.
These are often the most difficult cases for an attorney to prove because we have to show that the owner of the property where the crash occurred either knew or should have known, about the dangerous condition. For example, it can be hard for a person to win a case where they have slipped on a spill from a broken jar in a grocery store aisle if we cannot prove that the store knew about the spill beforehand. However, should that same store have a recurring leak from a water pipe in their produce section, the case is much easier to prove.
If you are involved in a fall, it is very important to preserve all evidence as soon as possible. Any crash reports taken at the time are very helpful. If you hire an attorney soon enough, the attorney will request any videotape of the scene (store security cameras) or send an investigator out to review the crash scene on your behalf. As a smart property owner will immediately try to correct a dangerous situation before someone else gets hurt, it is important to document the crash scene before any such changes are made.
Cases, where a crash occurs due to snow and ice, are even more difficult to prove as there is an assumption that a property owner will have a reasonable time to clean up snow or ice after it falls. We have, however, won such cases in the past by showing that the design of certain elements on the property, such as drains or sidewalks, actually led to the buildup of dangerous ice.
As these cases often depend on the early involvement of a team of expert witnesses who are able to say exactly what the property owner should have done to prevent the crash, it is imperative that you secure legal representation as soon as possible.