Legal Matters With Chris Richard: Why Personal Injury Law?

Many people have a specific view in mind when they think about an injury lawyer or about the purpose of personal injury law. Lancaster Chown & Welch LLP is a law firm with an exclusive focus on personal injury law and has personal injury lawyers that support Niagara Falls, Welland and the St. Catharines area. In a recent episode of the VIP Late Lunch, Chris Richard, Managing Partner of Lancaster Chown & Welch LLP sat down with host Lee Sterry of 610 Newstalk to discuss why personal injury law exists and what it achieves for society.

Regulating Behaviour

If we take a step back and think about why personal injury law exists and what it does, we can see that it plays an important role in regulating behaviour. Personal injury lawyers have the task of helping victims who have been injured seek compensation from people who choose to engage in dangerous or reckless behaviour and cause injury to another person. An easy example to think about is driving habits. If you are a poor driver who has had a number of accidents, your insurance rate will be high. While the $100 speeding ticket may not seem that hard to deal with, the $100 per month insurance premium increase is a more serious issue that causes people to regulate their behaviour and do their best to be good drivers. Why do insurance premiums go up? They go up because dangerous drivers are more likely to cause harm to another person which would bring about a personal injury claim – a very high price for an insurance company to pay. The risk of personal injury claims serves as a regulation tool when it comes to society’s behaviour.

Encourages Safety and Awareness

In addition to car related cases, injury lawyers are also often tasked with cases related to property negligence leading to injury.  Slip and fall injuries are very common and are often caused by the failure to remove tripping hazards or failing to take responsibility for dangerous situations such as ice, snow or wet conditions. Because there are insurance consequences that would come out of a personal injury claim, businesses and individuals are more safety conscious. In an effort to be proactive, actions are often taken such as:

• Having a protocol for properly dealing with messes and spills
• Using safety tools such as entry way mats, railings and signage
• Investing in safer technologies such as non-slip tiles and shoes

It is important to understand that personal responsibility also comes in to play. Even though a business may have failed to remove a hazard, there is also a personal obligation to take care – personal injury lawyers know that responsibility often falls on both parties.

Compensation

A victim’s compensation from an injury is not a windfall. The job of their personal injury lawyers is to help them be awarded a sum of money that compensates them for the pain and suffering that they have, and will continue to have, as well as compensation for financial losses such as income loss or medical expenses. A personal injury lawyer works hard to build a case to demonstrate why the victim is seeking the monetary compensation outlined in the case. If the victim is 30 years old, that means that this person will have some degree of pain, every day for the rest of their life – how do you compensate for pain that will last 50 years? In addition to pain, their acquired physical limitations will affect if, when and where they can work and so many other options that will have permanent effects on their life.

Understanding More about Personal Injury Law

Each Thursday afternoon from 1-1:30pm, Lancaster Chown & Welch LLP personal injury lawyers, joins Lee Sterry on the VIP Late Lunch to discuss the issues that matter to you. You can listen to the entire podcast about titled “Why Personal Injury Law” here. If you need the assistance of a personal injury lawyer in the Niagara Falls, Welland or St. Catharines area, please call Lancaster Chown & Welch LLP. We offer a free, one hour consultation so you can gain a better understanding of what having us as your advocate would mean.