Other Transportation Accidents

Experienced Chicago Lawyers Advocating for Injured Individuals

Cars, trucks, trains, planes, boats, and other vehicles must be operated with care and some degree of skill. All too often, however, people who handle them act negligently or recklessly, posing a risk of devastating harm to those around them. If you have been hurt in a transportation accident, you may be concerned about how you can pay your medical bills and make up for lost income. In this situation, you should consult a Chicago transportation accident lawyer to explore your legal options. At Moll Law Group, our injury attorneys provide aggressive legal representation to Chicago residents and other individuals who have been harmed because someone else acted carelessly.

Asserting Your Rights after a Transportation Accident

Most motor vehicle collisions and similar incidents are the result of negligence rather than intentional misconduct. If you are a plaintiff bringing a personal injury claim after a transportation accident, you usually would need to establish negligence by a preponderance of the evidence. You would try to show the defendant's duty of care toward you, a breach of that duty, actual and proximate causation, and actual damages. The duty generally would be defined as the standard duty of reasonable care, which means taking the same precautions that an ordinary, reasonable person would take in the same situation. Actual and proximate causation means that the accident must have been both a direct and a foreseeable result of the defendant’s careless conduct.

When a defendant breaches a safety law, harms someone whom the law was designed to protect, and causes a type of injury that the law was designed to prevent, the doctrine of negligence per se (negligence as a matter of law) may apply. If it does, the plaintiff needs to show only the elements of causation and damages. For example, the Illinois law against DUI may be a basis for using the doctrine of negligence per se after a car crash caused by a drunk driver. A transportation accident lawyer in Chicago can help you determine whether negligence per se may apply.

Some transportation accidents are the fault of multiple parties, including the plaintiff. Illinois follows the doctrine of modified comparative negligence. This means that if a defendant claims that the victim was partially responsible for the accident, the jury can assign each party a percentage of fault. The victim’s recovery may be reduced by an amount equal to his or her responsibility, as long as it is not more than 50 percent.

The main purpose of a negligence lawsuit is to recover damages. In most cases, these damages are compensatory, which means that they are designed to put the victim back into roughly the same position they would be in if the accident had not happened. Damages can be both economic and non-economic. Economic damages often include medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, property damage, lost income, lost earning capacity, and other tangible costs. Non-economic losses can include mental anguish, pain and suffering, and loss of consortium. In some cases when a defendant's actions have been truly egregious, punitive damages may be warranted. These go beyond the purpose of compensating the victim to punishing or deterring the defendant or similarly situated parties.

Seek Guidance from a Chicago Attorney for a Transportation Accident Claim

The Chicago lawyers at Moll Law Group can assist victims of car accidents and other incidents of negligence involving transportation. Billions of dollars have been recovered in cases in which we were involved. We serve accident victims and their families in Naperville, Schaumburg, Wheaton, and communities throughout Cook County. Call us at 312-462-1700 or contact us via our online form to set up a free consultation with a Chicago transportation accident attorney.