Are you drowning in a pile of medical bills from an accident that you didn’t even cause? Has the accident caused you pain and suffering? Accidents can bring trauma to both your physical and mental state and wreak havoc on your financial well-being. You have probably lost time at work and are likely dealing with a stressful situation that you didn’t cause.
The law firm of Costa Ivone, LLC knows your pain. Our personal injury lawyers know your struggle. Our workers’ compensation lawyers are ready to put their experience and expertise to work for you, to deliver justice and get the fair settlement that you deserve.
If you want to hear it from actual clients of our law firm, ask someone we served in 2016. Collectively, they would tell you we recovered $6,500,000 for them. We can recover money for you, as well.
How can we help you?
We will start by getting to the bottom of the situation. When an employer has decided to withhold money that you deserve, we will negotiate your claim and work toward a solution. No one likes to argue with the insurance company. Their evasive tactics don’t work on us. We’re knowledgeable and equipped to work out the terms of your claim and reach a fair settlement for a you. If you’re injured in an accident that was not your fault, we will work for you and keep you informed every step of the way.
Our law team has expertise in:
If you are left dealing with a personal injury claim, we can assist you in several ways.
Negotiating for you is what we do. The areas include:
Medical Costs
Beyond the negotiations for the cost of medical treatment and legal aspects of your case, we are also going to take care of getting the detailed report of your injuries, the medical plan for your recovery and treatment, and detailed list of injuries to the insurance company that is responsible for paying. We’ll gather the necessary reports from your doctor(s) about your condition, your medications, and the ongoing treatment you will require.
Lost Wages
While we are working on a claim, we look at everything involved with your lost wages and the impact this has for the client’s well-being. Even one week of lost income can devastate your family’s financial future. We evaluate every single detail that could impact your settlement, and present it to get our clients what they need to recover from this setback.
Pain and Suffering
How has the accident affected you physically? It’s sometimes difficult for clients to describe just how bad it hurts, and injuries can be extensive. Mental and physical pain can include disfigurement, loss of mobility, worsening of a pre-existing condition, and the inability to participate in activities you previously enjoyed. All of these account for suffering beyond the physical pain. However, it is hard to measure this loss. Our attorneys at Costa Ivone, LLC are able to look at all of the above factors to calculate a financial value for pain and suffering.
If needed and appropriate, we can calculate the loss in wages by using a multiplier method. After finding the total of lost wages, we’ll multiply it by a chosen number. So if a client has $75,000 in lost income and the number is 5 to reach the non-economic damages for pain and suffering, the client would receive $375,000.
Punitive Damages
When someone causes an accident on purpose, they are deliberately negligent. You may be entitled to these in a settlement.
Modified Comparative Negligence
Illinois’ modified comparative negligence ruling can bar any recovery by the plaintiff who is found to be more than 50 percent responsible for the injury. Clients need an aggressive firm that works tirelessly to ensure the victim of an injury is not unfairly penalized by this ruling. Often, insurer’s try for this ruling in order to excuse or reduce the payment, so we consider it our duty to make sure none of our clients suffer as a result of unsubstantiated evidence. Any required proof to win a just settlement for our clients will be found.
How is personal injury law different?
Tort law and personal injury law often go together. If someone is involved in an accident, there are personal injury laws to protect the parties involved. It determines who is liable for any injuries and how compensation is paid. Tort law covers all of the different types of injuries to both property and people when the case doesn’t involve criminal activity.
The most important part of personal injury law is finding the degree of fault by the person who allegedly caused the injury. There are 3 main degrees of fault, which are:
Why is negligence an important factor in a personal injury case?
Negligence is important to personal injury cases, because people are expected to live their lives in a way that doesn’t cause harm to others. In tort law, a person is protected from those whose actions or inaction caused them harm. If property belonging to a person is damaged, or a person is injured, the individual at fault is held responsible.
Negligence doesn’t indicate intentional injury. It means that someone failed to take reasonable care to prevent the injury. These cases attempt to measure the degree of care that was taken by the person found to be at-fault.
What are intentional torts?
Libel, slander, assault, and inflicting emotional stress on another person are examples of intentional torts. It’s an injury that someone meant to cause.
What is strict liability?
Defective products can cause injuries when the consumer wasn’t aware of its flaws. We have strict liability laws to ensure the victim doesn’t have to prove the manufacturer was negligent, only that the product caused the injury. There may also be a lawsuit against any party who was involved in distributing the product, such as the engineer, the manufacturer, or the retailer.
What if I have an injury at work?
Work injuries happen often and the first step is informing your employer in writing. Unfortunately, there are employers who ignore the employee who was hurt, especially when asked for workers’ compensation. It may be due to their failure to obtain the relevant workers’ insurance to cover employees. This doesn’t excuse the employer for compensating you, and no matter what their reason is, the attorneys at Costa Ivone, LLC in Lisle, Illinois will work tirelessly for clients who are owed workers’ compensation.
Are work injuries only for emergent injuries?
Work injuries can be many things, from violence in the workplace to slips and falls on unseen hazards, or using defective or dangerous equipment, repetitive motions, unsafe working conditions, vehicle or equipment accidents, being exposed to dangerous substances, and/or fires and explosions.
Does Illinois have different laws for comparative negligence?
Illinois, like some other states, has comparative negligence laws. When an accident with an injury happens and possibly damage to property, the law decides how much responsibility for the accident should be assigned to the parties involved.
If two parties are involved, one is referred to as the 1st party and the claimant is the 3rd party. Out of the two parties, the recipient for compensation for any losses and the amount that should be received will be decided by the comparative negligence laws, dependent upon who caused the accident and to what extent that person was at fault.
Say, for example, Maria is moving houses, so she is driving her car with items piled to the ceiling, which are obstructing her view. Jessica is driving too fast along the street that Maria’s street crosses. Maria doesn’t see Jessica’s car and pulls out in front of her and hits her car, causing an automobile accident. Jessica may have had more time to swerve or stop had she not been speeding. Since both drivers have contributed in some way to this car accident, the insurance company will apply comparative negligence laws to determine who is liable to pay for damages for the car wreck.
To recover damages, Illinois uses modified comparative negligence. This law states that an injured person may be able to recover damages if he or she is less than 50 percent at fault. The amount recovered can be reduced in proportion to the amount of fault of each party in the car accident.
In the example above, a judge may find one person in the automobile accident 75% at fault, and the driver who is 25% at fault would be able to collect damages, as their portion of blame is less than 50%. However, he or she may only be awarded 75% of the cost of damages and medical costs by the other driver’s insurance company.
How Is Comparative Negligence Resolved?
In the unfortunate event that you’ve been injured, it’s in your best interest to contact the attorneys at Costa Ivone, LLC, a personal injury and workers’ compensation law firm that works tirelessly on behalf of injured clients throughout Illinois. Otherwise, it can be very difficult to get insurance companies to pay damages to any party when an accident takes place.
The insurance company will often offer a minimum amount and it may only be based on an estimate of the percentage of blame, according to the parties involved. You need an expert attorney to be sure the facts are straight so you get the compensation you deserve. Insurance companies will negotiate with you on your own, but without an attorney working on your behalf, it will likely be reduced or unfair. If neither party can agree to a settlement when determining comparative negligence, the court has the final say in the matter.
What are the most common work injuries that receive compensation?
To what am I entitled by the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Act?
Talk to an attorney to get the workers’ compensation you deserve.
If you have informed your employer about a work injury and your efforts after following the proper channels have been ignored, it may be time to contact the hardworking attorneys at Costa Ivone, LLC.
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