Salt Lake City Personal Injury Lawyer
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Client Testimonials
Brad is fantastic! So pleased with all the help he has been giving me in such a stressful hard time with my accident. He definitely treats his clients like family and wants what is best for them. Would recommend him to anyone.
Ashley Richey
I contacted Brad a couple of times with some questions regarding our accident and what our rights were. He gave us valuable and helpful suggestions and was so friendly and knowledgeable.
Aimee Ballif
Went above and beyond to not only help me with my case but to reassure me as I was struggling with my anxiety. He was very kind and supportive and wasn't afraid to offer as much help as possible. One of the best you'll meet here and I highly recommend!
Linzie Builds
ABOUT BRAD DEBRY
7 Mistakes That Ruin Personal Injury Cases
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The possibility of getting injured at one time or another is something most of us accept as a fact of life. And while accidents happen, most of us take what measures we can to avoid them. When you’re injured because someone behaved in a careless or negligent manner, however, you deserve to be compensated.
If you’re reading this, you may have been in an accident caused by someone else’s negligence. You may be in pain. You’ve probably missed work and might be looking at missing more. You’re likely worried about paying the bills. And, chances are you’re wondering who to turn to for help with a personal injury claim.
We are here to help. Our firm offers free legal consultations. Call our Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer today.
Don’t worry about having the money to pay for the answers you need upfront. Just give us a call as soon as you can and schedule a free legal consultation.
The information that you’ll find below will help you better understand your personal injury claim. First, we want to make you aware of the many ways you can unwittingly damage your claim. Then, we’ll use a client story to help you get an even better idea of important elements you’ll need to know. Be sure to read to the end to learn as much as possible.
Common Personal Injury Claim Mistake
The last thing you want to do when filing a personal injury claim is damage its value. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many people do in their Salt Lake City personal injury claims. Please take note of the mistakes below to help you avoid these same pitfalls.
Not Getting to the Hospital After the Accident
It’s not uncommon for people to refuse a trip to the hospital after a personal injury. This may be tough to believe, but the natural rush people often experience during traumatic experiences can mask pain, at least temporarily. In addition, they may experience a temporary boost in energy and strength. This effect makes it important for a doctor to check you out and make sure you don’t have internal injuries of which you are unaware.
If you pass up an exam and go later, you’re risking your health and your personal injury claim. The insurance agency will jump at the chance to suggest you mustn’t have been all that badly hurt if you didn’t go to the doctor right away.
If you skip the exam altogether and then file a claim, you’ll be without the official record of your injuries your visit would have provided. This record is important evidence for your claim, and the closer the date and time of your exam is to the accident, the tougher it will be for the insurance company to challenge.
Disregarding Your Doctor’s Treatment Plan
If you’re like most of us, you’re familiar with the packet of information you’re given when you leave the hospital or doctor’s office. You may have also completely disregarded it, assuming it was just “blah, blah, blah” that would make no difference to your health.
What’s important to look at in the packet you receive after leaving the hospital or doctor’s office is the treatment plan. This may include medications, physical therapy, chiropractic appointments, or other treatments. This plan will guide you in how you can participate in your own recovery to get back to your life as quickly as possible.
It’s crucial to not only do the things you’re instructed to by your treatment plan, but to refrain from activities that are too strenuous until you’ve recovered.
In addition to risking your health, you risk the insurance company devaluing your claim, if they discover you are disregarding doctor’s orders.
Not only should you not be posting photos of yourself on social media bungee jumping while recovering from a neck injury, you shouldn’t be bungee jumping while recovering from a neck injury, no matter what the guy strapping you into the harness says.
Be diligent about following your doctor’s treatment plan. It will protect your claim, and most importantly, your health.
Agreeing to Give the Insurance Company a Recorded Statement
After an accident, you can expect the insurance company to contact you. This is standard procedure. While they may act as if they are calling to see how you’re feeling, you need to know they’re calling to save their company money.
Insurance adjusters are well-trained in interviewing injured people. They’re bound to be great listeners, empathetic, and highly skilled at getting you talking. Remember, they’re looking to record any information that can be used to lower the value of your claim.
Imagine a call from an insurance adjuster to talk about your injuries from being hit by a car. The conversation with the insurance company could somehow get around to a casual remark to ferret out whether you’ve ever jaywalked. Not whether you jaywalked the day you were struck by the car, but ever. If the company can suggest that you weren’t in a crosswalk, they might get away with paying you less than you rightfully deserve in compensation.
By the way, have you ever looked at your phone while walking down the street? Yeah, another example of a loaded question that will be asked in a far less obvious way, if it comes from an insurance adjuster. Before you know it, they may suggest you were wandering around in the road scrolling through your social media when you were hit.
Protect your claim’s value from creative interviewers. Just pass on this call. Many people don’t realize it’s actually allowed. Your claim isn’t going to stall out if you don’t speak to the insurance company— it’s going to be better protected. In fact, your Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer would love to handle conversations with the insurance company for you.
Failing to Hire a Lawyer as Soon as Possible
This one is understandable, to a point. If you’ve sustained serious injuries, you may not be thinking about anything but survival and recovery right after your accident. As soon as you’re in a place where you can give the issue consideration, it’s important to make finding a lawyer a priority.
Another reason this call is often neglected is that people go by the state’s statute of limitations for filing a personal injury claim.
People who go this route need to know is that while in most cases you have four years to file your claim in the state of Utah, there are exceptions. For instance, if you’ve been injured in an accident involving a municipality— the city, county, or state— you’ll only have one year to file.
A year can fly by when you’re recovering from serious injury, but even a year is too long to wait to get started. As time passes, you can expect less evidence to be available to you.
The accident scene is going to get cleared away. Evidence may get lost. Security videos can be recorded over. Even if you’re lucky enough to have witnesses, remember that people move and change phones and email from time to time. And even if witnesses are located months or years after the accident, memories won’t be as clear as they were immediately afterward.
If your claim goes to trial, the insurance company will have an easier time challenging the memories of witness whose testimony was recorded many months after the accident. Protect your claim from devaluation by hiring a lawyer as soon as possible after your injury.
Hiring the Wrong Salt Lake City Personal Injury Attorney
These days, everything moves fast. People don’t read, they skim. Selecting your lawyer is one of the times you’ll want to slow down enough to make sure your lawyer:
- focuses on personal injury in their practice;
- is a trial lawyer; and,
- has a successful record both in and out of the courtroom.
This is not the time to grab just anyone who passed the bar exam. It’s also not the time to call your mother’s father’s brother’s tax attorney; no matter how fond you are of Great Uncle Jerry. And it’s certainly not the time to consider suddenly learning how to take on your own claim without a lawyer.
Statistics show that people without legal representation are awarded many times less than what an experienced personal injury trial attorney can get them. In addition, should the insurance company balk at your attempts to negotiate a settlement, you won’t have the legal leverage to take them to court alone.
What’s more, it’s not uncommon for insurance companies to be more willing to pay a fair settlement when they know they’ll be up against an excellent attorney if they push the claim to the courthouse. Hiring a personal injury trial attorney can, ironically, get your claim settled without having to go to court.
Give your claim the best chance of success by hiring a qualified personal injury trial attorney.
Salt Lake City Personal Injury Client Story
The story below will give you more information about your personal injury claim. Though the names and specifics have been edited to protect the privacy of our client, you’ll learn a lot by reading to the end. When you’re done, we urge you to call us to schedule a free legal consultation. We’d love to give you some answers about your specific claim.
On a warm Thursday in early June not long ago, Bo Kamiński packed camping gear for two into the camper shell of his pickup. His son Kole was graduating high school the following night, and Bo was taking him camping around their favorite BLM sites in the Salt Lake City area for three weeks.
They’d been looking forward to the father-son camping trip for a month, and Bo was determined to make it perfect. Kole would be leaving for the Marine Corps in August, and he wanted to give his son some great memories to take with him.
The two had been close since the untimely death of Kole’s mother when he was only a toddler. Bo and his son had done everything together in the years that followed, and Kole seemed to be doing okay. Even so, Bo worried that Kole needed a mother.
When Kole was in eighth grade, Bo met Kathy at a work picnic. They seemed to have a lot in common and got along well. After six months of dating, Bo and Kathy got married. That’s when things fell apart.
For all Bo’s good intentions of giving his son what he thought he’d been missing, he was disappointed to find Kathy increasingly critical of his son. Kole, for his part, avoided Kathy at every opportunity. At first, Bo dug in, trying to force a relationship between son and stepmom. His interference only made things worse. Kole began house hopping, sleeping at his friends’ homes as often as possible. By eleventh grade, Kole had all but moved in with his best friend’s family. What bothered Bo most was that his son seemed fine without him.
Ironically, the relationship between Bo and Kathy fell apart quickly without Kole to focus on. Kathy turned her critical eye on Bo and he stopped trying to temper his resentment over the loss of his son. By the end of eleventh grade, Bo and Kathy had divorced and Bo put his focus on repairing his relationship with Kole.
Still wary, Kole spent the summer before his senior year at his best friend’s house to make absolutely sure Kathy wasn’t coming back. In the fall of his senior year, he agreed to move back home, but warned his dad that if “the Witch” returned, he was gone.
Bo and his son spent a peaceful year together, and Bo took Kole camping as often as possible. Each time they set out, they went a different camp sight. It was just like old times.
As graduation loomed, Bo began planning the camping trip. He knew he couldn’t get back the time he’d lost with Kole, but he was determined not to waste one more minute before his son left for the Marine Corps.
As he surveyed the gear, Bo stood upright and felt his lower back protest. He thought about the new sleeping mat he’d seen online with all the little hexagonal cells in it. It was really weird looking, but the online reviewers had sworn by theirs for a comfortable night’s sleep while roughing it in the wild.
Bo left the truck loaded up in the garage and jumped into his car to see if Mountain Republic had two of the sleeping mats in stock. They weren’t cheap, but they’d be worth it on a long camping trip if they worked.
Bo headed north on State Street, pausing with his blinker on as an old man walked a curly, white poodle-ish dog across the entrance to the shopping center. It was cute. Maltese? Bichon?
The little dog is the last thing Bo remembered before waking in a hospital bed, his son keeping watch from the chair beside him.
Kole told his dad he’d been rear-ended at 40 miles an hour by a college student driving a minivan while texting. Bo marveled that he wasn’t feeling all that much discomfort for being hit so hard while at a complete stop.
He assumed he’d gotten whiplash, because his neck was in a stability collar, and his left arm was in a cast and was throbbing a bit, so that must’ve broken. But… shouldn’t he feel more banged up than he did?
One look at Kole’s grief-stricken face and he knew.
“Am I paralyzed?” Bo asked with dread. Kole wouldn’t meet his eyes. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he studied the ceiling and quietly confirmed his father’s fears.
“From the waist down,” was all he could manage.
The doctors told Bo he’d broken his back in the accident. His fractured arm and whiplash would heel, but they weren’t yet sure whether he would walk again.
A stoic man, Bo tried to be strong about his circumstances, but he was consumed by the fear he may spend his life confined to a wheelchair.
Kole could tell his dad was quickly sliding into depression. On one of his visits to the hospital, he suggested his dad look into a personal injury claim, but Bo refused. He mumbled that a lawyer would just charge him a ton of money and not do anything. Kole, however, had a feeling that for his dad just wasn’t ready to acknowledge the severity of his situation.
Bo visited his dad every day, accompanying him to his physical therapy sessions. His dad was becoming less and less talkative with each visit. Sometimes he’d just stare across the green lawn at the rehab, off in a world of his own as if Kole wasn’t even there.
On one such visit, Kole told his dad he was going to put off the Marine Corps to stay in Salt Lake City and take care for him. That got his attention. Bo was adamant his son pursue his dream. He would be fine, he assured Kole, but his son remained unconvinced.
Their last conversation about Kole’s future occurred the day before Bo was set to be released from rehab. Kole was a month away from enlisting. He told his dad he’d made peace with waiting. Maybe Bo would regain the use of his legs and Kole could join in a year or two…
They’d argued, and both had cried. Finally, Bo asked tearfully, “What’s it gonna take for you to agree to pursue the Corps?”
“I need you to fight, Dad,” Kole answered.
“Isn’t that what we’re doing, Kole, fighting? Again? Seems like we do that a lot these days,” Bo looked off across the facility’s lawn again. “Thought we were past all that,” he added, his voice catching. After all they’d been through, he wasn’t about to stand in the way of Kole’s military dream.
“We are past all that, Dad,” Kole said putting his arm around his dad’s shoulders. “I need you to fight for you. For compensation for what you’ve lost,” Kole said. “You need to know that whether I stay or go, you’re never going to lose me. But I need you to fight to reclaim your life.”
Bo called us that day. He said he needed to know how much it would cost to hire us for a personal injury claim, what his claim was worth, and how long it would take.
We met Bo and Kole the next day after Bo’s discharge from rehab. Their bond was undeniable, as was Bo’s pride in his son.
How much will it cost to hire a lawyer for my personal injury claim?
No sooner had Kole locked the wheels on Bo’s wheelchair than Bo said gruffly, “Before I waste your time here, I need to know what you charge.”
“First of all, Bo, this is a completely free consultation. We are here to help you; in no way are you wasting our time, or yours for that matter. We want to answer your questions and hopefully give you some peace of mind, whether you hire our firm or not.”
The lawyer then explained that there would be no upfront charge.
“Our contingency fee model means we only get paid when we resolve your personal injury claim successfully.”
How much is my personal injury claim worth?
“Huh,” Bo said, surprised. “Okay, so how much is a claim like mine worth?”
Our attorney explained that it’s not possible to toss up a dollar amount on the value of a case without having some very important information, because every claim is unique.
“To accurately assess the value of your claim, we’ll first need to conduct an investigation into the accident, and then we’ll need to understand your damages.
“We can begin the investigation right away, interviewing witnesses and gathering evidence. We won’t be clear on your damages, however, until you reach maximum medical improvement.
“This means when you’ve recovered back to your ‘normal’ level of health. At this point, we don’t yet know whether that’s going to be possible.
Seeing Bo wince, the lawyer gently continued, “It’s a tough subject, Bo, but you need to talk about it to move forward with your case, and, I’m guessing, your life. We’ve handled a number of cases similar to yours, and you’ve got a lot to process.
“If it turns out that you’re not able to recover 100% of your previous level of health, then maximum medical improvement will be reached when your doctors feel you’ve reached your ‘new normal.’
“Either way, when you’re at maximum medical improvement, we’ll understand your damages and can tell you what your claim is worth.
“Getting to this point is going to mean you’re finished with surgeries and we know what the future medical care for your injuries is going to look like.
“Your job,” the lawyer continued, “Is to channel all your energy into your recovery. Now, this doesn’t mean overdoing it— getting enough rest is critical. Go as slow as you need to in order to recover properly. Don’t jump back into former activities you’re not medically cleared for yet. Take your meds, do your physical therapy. You may want to consider counseling to give you some additional support for a while.
“Sticking to your treatment plan is going to help us maintain the value of your claim.”
In that moment, Bo seemed to come to a decision. He nodded and said, “You have my commitment to doing the work to get back to health, whatever that turns out to be.” He put a measuring hand on his son’s shoulder and smiled for the first time since the accident.
How long will my claim take?
Kole smiled back at his dad and asked, “How long will my dad’s claim take?”
The lawyer told them that Bo’s case timeline is also not something that can be accurately predicted upfront, because it’s going to largely depend on the speed of Bo’s recovery.
“The first thing your case timeline will hinge on is how long it takes you to reach maximum medical improvement, Bo. Once you’re there and we know your damages, we’ll send the insurance company a demand letter.
“From that point, your claim’s timeline will depend hon whether or not the insurance company behaves in a reasonable manner. If they agree to a fair settlement, we can wrap up your case. If they refuse to make a fair settle offer, we’ll take them to court.
“Most cases are resolved through settlement, but if your case does make it to the courtroom, it’s not going to be a problem. Though every claim is different, we have a long and successful record of winning claims like yours both in and out of the courtroom. The insurance company knows our track record. They’re not going to be eager to push your case in front of a jury.
“That’s why whoever you decide to hire, we recommend you go with a personal injury trial lawyer with a proven history of wins via settlement and in court.”
Bo and Kole were encouraged by what they heard in our meeting. Bo retained our firm, and today we can happily say that we got Bo nine times more than the insurance company’s initial offer.
Call Our Salt Lake City Personal Injury Lawyer Today
We hope you’ve found the information on this page helpful. That said, every claim is unique. We urge you to contact our Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer today to get answers for your specific injury claim. Don’t take on the burden of dealing with your claim by yourself. Call and let us help you through.
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