Hollywood Personal Injury

Conveniently located between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, the beautiful coastal city of Hollywood has a lot to offer local residents and visitors. With rapid population growth over the past few decades and countless hotels, shops, and other attractions drawing tourists to the area, Hollywood is a thriving community with many resources – but also a growing rate of car crashes and other accidents caused by careless or reckless conduct. The experienced Hollywood personal injury lawyers at Cohn & Smith have handled a wide range of claims resulting from accidents. We can advise you regarding whether you may have a claim and vigorously assert your rights.

In order for an injured person (or a deceased victim’s family or estate) to have a viable claim for damages following a car crash, truck accident, slip and fall, or other incident, they must be able to prove that the defendant was at fault for the accident. Generally, this means that the defendant was negligent, and the elements of a negligence claim must be satisfied.

At the outset, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant had a legal responsibility to meet a certain level of care and fell short of that level. For instance, a driver may have had a duty to obey the speed limit or yield at an intersection, but the driver may have violated that duty by speeding or running a red light. In another example, a business owner may have failed to block off a dangerous area on its property so that customers would not venture into it.

After showing that the defendant acted carelessly, the plaintiff needs to show that they would not have been injured, more likely than not, had the defendant met the appropriate duty of care. This is known as causation, and it may involve evidence from accident reconstructionists or other experts in some cases. Finally, actual damages must have resulted from the accident. Both tangible and intangible forms of harm may be compensated, ranging from medical bills, the costs of future treatment, and lost income to the victim’s pain and suffering, loss of consortium by the victim’s spouse, and any diminished quality of life that the victim experienced.

Many other issues may also arise in Florida personal injury claims, including assertions that the victim was partly responsible for the accident, which could potentially reduce the amount of compensation awarded. Procedural rules like the statute of limitations also must be taken into account to preserve the victim’s right to compensation. To ensure that all of these complexities are properly addressed, an injured person or their family should seek legal counsel as soon as possible after an accident.

The knowledgeable Hollywood personal injury attorneys at Cohn & Smith can help victims seek maximum compensation following an accident. To schedule a free consultation, call us at (954) 431-8100 or contact us online. We accept most of our cases on a contingency fee contract, which means that we wait until a case is successfully concluded to collect payment for our services. Our personal injury and wrongful death attorneys understand that you are going through a financially, physically, and emotionally challenging time, and we will treat you with the compassion that you deserve.