Personal Injury Lawyer Serving Santa Fe and All of New Mexico
If you or a family member recently suffered an injury and/or economic loss due to the actions of another party, you may have grounds to file a personal injury claim. If you intend to file such a claim, working with an experienced Santa Fe personal injury lawyer will dramatically improve your chances of success with the case. The right attorney can help you efficiently prove fault for the injury and recover maximum compensation for your damages.
Youngers Law is dedicated to seeking justice for injury victims. Attorney Joleen Youngers works diligently to maximize the financial recovery in every case. She handles personal injury and wrongful death cases on a contingent fee basis. This means that you will owe no attorney fees unless she obtains compensation for you.
Ms. Youngers is supportive, aggressive and thorough. She cares for her clients, fights for their rights and knows how to gather the details that matter for their personal injury claims. She works with experts to gain deeper insight into the nature of your accident. Most importantly, attorney Youngers knows when to negotiate and when to litigate – you can feel confident that she will take the approach that gives you the best chance of maximizing your compensation.
Types of Cases that Attorney Youngers Handles
Attorney Youngers and her dedicated staff handle a broad range of personal injury cases, including those involving:
- Motor vehicle accidents: If you have been involved in any type of serious traffic accident, Ms. Youngers can help. She is experienced in dealing with the complicated insurance issues that can arise. She also handles accidents involving trucks and other commercial vehicles.
- Premises liability: Have you sustained injuries due to a slip-and-fall accident, a dog bite, falling objects, structural collapses or other dangerous conditions on public or private property? If so, you may be entitled to financial recovery. The firm’s lawyer can help you explore your legal options for relief.
- Inadequate security: Hotels, bars, nightclubs, parking garages and other businesses must keep their properties reasonably safe and secure to protect visitors from crime. If you were a victim of a violent crime, robbery, burglary or sexual assault that occurred on a commercial property, then you may have a personal injury claim against the property owner.
- Injuries at Work against Third Parties: Sometimes, persons injured at work can be compensated beyond worker’s compensation claims paid by their employers. Sometimes, dangers are created by persons other than your employer (third parties) and you can hold those persons accountable. If so, Youngers Law can help.
- Farm and livestock accidents: Unsafe conditions on farms and ranches can lead to catastrophic injuries. Livestock such as cattle and horses are powerful animals that can cause serious injuries to those around them. They can also cause serious accidents on the roadway. If you were injured in a farm, ranch or livestock accident, attorney Youngers and her team can help.
- Sexual abuse: The firm provides representation in civil lawsuits for victims of sexual assault, particularly those abused by people in positions of authority, such as supervisors, ministers, therapists, foster parents, teachers and coaches.
- Elder abuse: Ms. Youngers protects the rights of elders who were victims of physical abuse or neglect, particularly those in nursing homes and senior care facilities.
- Civil rights: All too often, those who are hired to serve and protect end up hurting rather than helping, resulting in injury and even death. Youngers Law is experienced in getting justice for victims of excessive force and police misconduct.
- Wrongful death: The firm provides caring, compassionate representation for those who have tragically lost loved ones due to the negligence or recklessness of others.
Personal injury law includes many types of cases, and when you are searching for a Santa Fe personal injury lawyer to handle your case, it is important to find an attorney who has proven experience resolving cases similar to yours. For example, motor vehicle accident cases present different issues from what you might face in a civil rights claim or premises liability suit.
Youngers Law, PA, has extensive professional experience resolving a wide range of personal injury cases for clients in Santa Fe and throughout the state. We take time to learn as much as possible about each client we represent to ensure we address their unique individual needs. Our goal in every personal injury case is maximum recovery for our client and to secure this recovery as efficiently as possible.
Building Your Personal Injury Suit in Santa Fe
The foundation of every personal injury claim is a measurable loss or actual harm of some kind that directly resulted from another party’s negligence or illegal misconduct. You must identify the party who caused your injury, prove how they caused it, and then prove the full extent of the resulting damages. You must also establish causation, which means proving your damages resulted directly from the defendant’s actions and not from any other cause.
Your Santa Fe personal injury lawyer can help you build the foundation of your claim. She can help you gather the evidence needed to establish liability for your damages and assist you in uncovering all the various types of damages you are eligible to claim. You may be able to recover much more compensation than you initially expected, and the right attorney is an essential asset for maximizing the results of your claim.
Damages in Your Personal Injury Case
The objective of your personal injury case is to hold a defendant accountable for the damages they caused, and this means proving the nature and extent of those damages. A plaintiff is generally able to claim economic and non-economic damages, with the former being easier to prove with the correct documentation.
Economic damages in a personal injury case include financial losses resulting from the incident. These may include vehicle repair costs and other property damage, medical expenses, the cost of long-term medical care for a serious injury, lost wages, and compensation for lost future earnings if the victim has been permanently disabled by their personal injury.
Non-economic damages are intangible, such as physical pain, emotional suffering, and trauma you suffered because of a defendant’s negligence or misconduct. State law does not cap or limit pain and suffering compensation, so the amount a plaintiff recovers is generally reflective of the overall severity of their experience. Plaintiffs who suffer permanent harm typically recover more pain and suffering compensation than those who can fully recover.
Resolving Your Personal Injury Case in Santa Fe
It’s natural to wonder how long it will take to prove liability for your damages and resolve your personal injury claim. Many of these cases are resolved outside of court through private settlement negotiations. This process allows both parties to resolve the case more quickly than they could in litigation, and they are able to negotiate mutually acceptable terms for resolving the case. However, this is not a viable strategy for every personal injury claim.
Your Santa Fe personal injury lawyer can advise you as to whether it would better suit your interests to pursue a swift settlement or take your case to court for the chance of a larger case award from a trial verdict. Whatever your situation requires, trust Youngers Law, PA, to provide guidance and support through every phase of your case.
Frequently Asked Questions About Personal Injury Cases
One common thread uniting all injury victims is that they have questions about their cases. Personal injury law can be confusing, especially for people who have not been seriously hurt before. Ms. Youngers has answered some of her clients’ most common questions to provide clarity for the injured.
Visitors to New Mexico, whether from the United States or elsewhere, will be subject to the state’s personal injury laws if they suffer injuries while vacationing here. New Mexico’s pure comparative negligence laws allow you to collect compensation for your injuries so long as you are not completely responsible for them. While you may collect damages even if you are partially at fault, keep in mind that as your responsibility for your injuries increases, the amount of compensation you can recover decreases.
In New Mexico, you may be able to collect compensation for the harms and losses arising from your injuries. These harms and losses include those that can be quantified, such as medical bills, future treatment costs and lost income, as well as harms that do not have a number as easily attached, such as pain and suffering, account for the lasting effects injuries can have on you and your loved ones.
As a visitor to New Mexico, you should seek the help of a personal injury lawyer after you get hurt. She will educate you further about the state’s injury laws and the types of compensation you may be eligible to receive in your situation.
How much compensation you receive will depend on the nature and extent of your injuries, including your immediate medical care, any surgeries or other treatments, your long-term medical needs, any follow-up care, and any income you lost because of your injuries. You may also be compensated for other harm and losses, such as pain and suffering, and disfigurement, as well as the emotional impact of your injuries and any trauma you went through.
The usual answer to this question is no. An insurance company may make you an offer before you know how well you will recover and the total impact of your injuries on you – physically, emotionally and financially.
You should not accept a settlement offer until an attorney with experience in personal injury cases analyzes your expenses and the full cost of care. Unfortunately, insurance companies routinely offer undervalued “lowball” settlements. Ms. Youngers can help you decide whether the insurance company’s offer is sufficient for your needs.
Yes, it is possible to bear partial fault for your injury and still qualify to recover compensation. The stateenforces a pure comparative fault statute that applies to any personal injury case in which the plaintiff shares fault with the defendant for causing the damages. If this comes into play in your case, you will have a fault percentage assigned, and you will lose this percentage of the total compensation recovered from the defendant as a penalty.
You can prove liability for a personal injury by gathering physical and digital evidence that shows exactly how your injury happened and identifies the party responsible for causing it. The standard of proof for success with a personal injury case is a preponderance of the evidence. This means that the evidence must show that the defendant is more likely than not responsible for the plaintiff’s claimed damages.
If anyone saw your injury happen, their witness testimony could be invaluable to your case. Your Santa Fe personal injury lawyer can help you obtain witness statements to support your case. It may also be necessary to consult expert witnesses who can provide specific professional insights into the most complex details of your personal injury case.
The cost to hire a Santa Fe personal injury lawyer will only be a percentage of your final settlement or verdict if you choose Youngers Law, PA, to represent you. Our firm accepts most personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning we only collect our fee if and when we win our client’s case, and the fee is a percentage of the total amount recovered for them.
This billing policy ensures that you have access to the legal counsel you need when you need it most, regardless of your financial situation. There is also no risk of you paying more for legal counsel than you win in compensation for your damages. If our team is unable to secure compensation for you, you pay no fee.
Contact a Knowledgeable Car Accident Attorney – Serving Santa Fe and the Entire State
To arrange a free consultation and meet directly with attorney Youngers, call 505-820-0108. You can also contact the firm online. Youngers Law offers evening and weekend appointments by request.
Based in Las Cruces and Santa Fe, the firm’s personal injury lawyer serves clients throughout New Mexico.
