Denver Personal Injury Lawyer

Suffering a personal injury can derail your life. It’s especially upsetting when you were hurt because of someone else’s negligence or wrongdoing. In these situations, you deserve full and fair compensation from the person or entity that caused you harm.

A Denver personal injury lawyer at Daniels & Scriven, PC can help you get the money you deserve. Our legal team has represented injured clients for more than 40 years in a variety of personal injury claims including motor vehicle accidents, slip and falls, and workplace injuries. 

Give us a call at (720) 863-6006 to find out how we can advocate for you so you get the damages you deserve and are made whole when an injury happens.

When Can You Make A Personal Injury Claim In Denver?

If you have been hurt by someone else, you can typically pursue a personal injury claim in Denver to make the person or entity who harmed you cover your losses. However, there are some circumstances where a defendant is only partly to blame for your losses.

In some states, called contributory negligence states, you cannot make a claim for compensation if you share any fault. That’s not the case in Colorado. 

Colo. Rev Stat. § 13-21-111 makes clear that “contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in any action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or in injury to person or property, if such negligence was not as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person for whose injury, damage, or death recovery is made.” 

This means if the defendant was at least 51% responsible for the incident that caused you harm, you can recover a portion of your damages based on their percentage at fault. If you were 10% to blame for an incident that caused $100,000 in losses, the defendant could still be responsible for paying you the remaining 90% or $90,000. 

You will need to act quickly when pursuing a claim for compensation, though. Under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-102(1), a two year statute of limitations applies to all cases arising from “negligence, trespass, malicious abuse of process, malicious prosecution, outrageous conduct, interference with relationships, and tortious breach of contract.” 

Because of this rule, you don’t take action within two years of the incident, your claim could be time barred and you wouldn’t be able to move forward with recovering compensation. There’s a different rule for motor vehicle accidents, though, which have a three-year statute of limitations under Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-80-101. 

Types of Denver Personal Injury Claims

There are many situations when negligence or intentional wrongdoing occurs and results in harm. In any of these circumstances, you may be able to make a personal injury claim. Daniels & Scriven, PC offers help to those injured in a wide variety of situations including:

• Car accidents
• Truck accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Pedestrian accidents
• Bicycle accidents
• Slip-and-falls

These are just some of the many circumstances where we can help you to fight for compensation when you’ve been harmed by someone’s bad acts. If you believe another person or entity was responsible for hurting you, we want to help you hold them accountable. 

How To Make A Denver Personal Injury Claim 

Most personal injury claims are based on negligence. As the court explains in a Colorado case called  Perreira v. State, 768 P.2d 1198 (1989), “To recover on a claim in negligence, the plaintiff must establish the existence of a legal duty, breach of the duty, causation, and damage.”

A legal duty is an obligation the defendant has to you. For example, if a friend invites you to their home or a store opens up its doors to invite customers onto its premises, your friend or the store have a legal obligation to make sure the environment is reasonably safe so you aren’t hurt. Likewise, drivers on the road have a legal duty to follow the rules of the road and exercise reasonable caution.

If a defendant breaches or fails to fulfill their legal duty by not acting as carefully as a hypothetical reasonable person would have under the circumstances, then you can make a claim against them as long as you can prove that breach was the direct cause of damages you can be compensated for. 

Compensation for a Denver Personal Injury Claim

When you are hurt, you should be fully compensated for all the harm someone has caused you. There are different types of damages you may be entitled to include:

• Compensatory damages: These refer to compensation for actual financial loss. For example, you should have your medical bills, lost wages, and lost earning potential covered. 
• Non-economic damages. This includes pain and suffering, emotional distress, and lost quality of life. 
• Punitive damages: These are designed to punish a defendant for wrongdoing. 

You should always have your compensatory damages fully covered. However, Colorado limits the other kinds of damages you can collect. 

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-102.5 caps damages for “non-economic loss or injury…  including pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional stress, and impairment of the quality of life.” The limit that applies adjusts over time to keep pace with inflation. 

Colo. Rev. Stat. § 13-21-102 restricts punitive damages to situations with “circumstances of fraud, malice, or willful and wanton conduct” and limits these to “three times the amount of actual damages.” Punitive damages aren’t common in personal injury claims, although they are potentially available in limited circumstances.

Getting Help from a Denver Personal Injury Lawyer 

Daniels & Scriven, PC has worked hard to help injured clients for more than 40 years, and we’ve recovered millions in compensation through out-of-court settlements and personal injury litigation.

We understand how important it is to get the compensation you deserve when your life has been impacted by someone else’s negligence and we will work hard to help you get the funds you need to move forward. Give us a call at (720) 863-6006 to schedule your free consultation with a Denver injury lawyer and learn how we can help you.