Wrist fractures can be painful and limiting to daily activities, so they are worth filing a claim over.
When businesses do not take care to maintain their premises, slip and fall or trip and fall accidents can happen. Often, the accident victim’s instincts kick in and they attempt to break their fall using their hands. While this may save the victim from a more serious injury, such as a head injury, back injury, broken nose, or other facial injury, it may result in a fractured wrist instead.
If you have suffered a fractured wrist when trying to catch yourself in the course of a slip and fall or trip and fall accident, you may be wondering what your options are. Is it really worth filing a personal injury claim for such a seemingly minor injury?
In most cases, the answer will be yes. A wrist fracture can be quite painful and certainly has the potential to support a strong case for compensation. Here are the key points to consider:
Can Negligence Be Proven? Of course, before you can even consider whether the amount of damages you could potentially recover is large enough to be worth pursuing, you have to know that your injury was actually someone else’s fault. In other words, you need to apply the principles of premises liability to your case and see if you will be able to prove that the business failed in its duty to protect you against slip and fall or trip and fall hazards. Some common scenarios a business would be liable for include falls caused by wet floors without signage, inadequate lighting in parking lots, loose rails in stairwells, and even bumpy carpet.
What Treatment Did You Require? Assuming your injury was the business owner or operator’s fault, you will need to consider the nature of the medical treatment you required for your fractured wrist. Simple fractures are easy to set, but if your fracture was more complicated you may need to have surgery to realign the bones. In general, the more complicated and invasive a medical treatment the greater the presumed suffering and the bigger the potential for recovery.
How Big of an Impact is the Injury Having on your Life? Finally, you will want to consider how the injury and the recovery period have affected your daily life. If you fractured both wrists, you may have had to miss work and you should be able to receive compensation for lost wages. You may also qualify to seek compensation for pain and suffering, based not only on your physical pain but also on the distress that comes along with being laid up in a cast that prevents you from taking care of your own daily needs.
Ultimately, you should not ever dismiss the possibility of seeking compensation for any kind of injury without first discussing your case with a personal injury attorney. Even if you are offered a settlement, you should still ask an attorney to review it for you.
If you would like an expert opinion on your wrist fracture injury case, please call 909-982-0707 and request a free initial consultation.
