Barbara McInvaille General Practice Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Under the law, personal injury is not always and not only physical injury. In legal terms, personal injury refers to damage not just to the physical body, but also to the mind and emotions. Any person who is injured in mind or body by the negligence, carelessness, incompetence, disregard or deliberate misconduct of another may take legal action for compensation.

A personal injury law suit in Tacoma and legal claims for compensation are brought because a person is unexpectedly, unintentionally, or unnecessarily involved and injured in an accident that may have occurred almost anywhere: in the home, the workplace, in a public space or on our highways. Personal injury lawsuits aim to make a person or company or municipality financially responsible for actions --or inactions— that brought about an injury.

Examples of personal injury not involving physical injury that may be easiest to understand are injuries that result from invasion of privacy, trespass and defamation. These are intentional acts in disregard of the law that truly injure people by causing emotional distress and mental anguish. An individual’s reputation –- and thus his ability to earn his living and his sense of self-worth -- may suffer as the result of another’s intentional defamation. For example, a teenager may be traumatized by the unwanted intimacy of a search by school officials that invades her personal privacy. However, anyone can understand how a severe physical injury can also provoke psychological damage. The trauma of a horrific accident may haunt a person and impair the ability to work or sustain relationships. Conditions in the workplace may cause physical diseases and great emotional distress when a job once thought to provide a livelihood becomes instead a sentence of slow death.

One of the most persistent –and most untrue--myths about personal injury lawsuits is that they are easy money. To the contrary, laws governing who can sue for damages, what they must prove in order to be eligible for damages, and how much compensation they can receive are quite strict and vary from state to state. Calculations to decide the amount of damages in a serious injury case are extremely complicated. Judges and juries must hear expert witnesses about medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering.

The legal mechanisms of civil lawsuit discovery—the process of assembling all the facts—can be difficult for a lawyer and devastating for the client who has already been injured.

The attorneys who specialize in personal injury law believe that an individual wrongfully injured suffers enough in body, mind and emotions without being burdened by medical costs, lost wages, disability, mental anguish, loss of reputation and property damage resulting from the injury. They urge clients not to discount or neglect any serious psychological injury or any injury to a good name or professional reputation.

Personal injury litigation saves families from the economic ruin of untimely, unexpected and wholly preventable injuries that seriously impair their bodies, destroy their peace of mind and threaten their livelihoods.

Careless business owners, drunk drivers, manufacturers who make and sell defective products, doctors who botch operations, municipalities that do not safeguard citizens and people who assault or defame others all should be held accountable. Sometimes it is necessary to force the drunk driver, or negligent corporation, or careless employee to acknowledge wrong-doing and make restitution. However, often the most important issue is protection of other citizens, that they might not fall victim to similar wrong-doing.

Many personal injury claims are settled outside of court. But when tried to a jury, the judges and juries who decide these cases rarely award unreasonably high compensation. In fact, most individuals who bring personal injury lawsuits often receive barely enough money in restitution for their injuries to pay for medical care and replacement of property. Attorneys, who work hard to thoroughly investigate claims, complete the discovery process, negotiate, and bring cases to trial, often represent clients on a "contingency basis," in which the attorney's fee is a percentage of the plaintiff's eventual compensation, payable when the case is resolved.

Don’t hesitate to seek the counsel of an experienced, well-regarded personal injury lawyer if you have been hurt physically and psychologically by negligence. You deserve the chance to recover without the burden of medical costs, lost wages, and emotional distress.

Contributed by The Law Office of Robert Helland, accident lawyers in Tacoma, 888-556-3564.