Elevator Accident Injury Lawsuit
Understanding the Process of Filing an Elevator Accident Injury Lawsuit: anyone injured in an elevator accident can file a lawsuit against those responsible for causing it. This process involves several steps, including gathering evidence, determining the liable parties, and filing the necessary legal documents. Our experienced team can guide you through each step, ensuring you understand your rights and options.
A personal injury lawsuit allows a victim to pursue a money settlement, including compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
The parties who could be held liable for an elevator accident include the elevator manufacturer, the property owners, and the elevator maintenance company. The maintenance company's role is crucial as they are responsible for ensuring the elevator's safety and functionality. If their negligence contributed to the accident, they could be held accountable.
In a situation where someone was killed in an elevator accident, their family can file a wrongful death lawsuit. This type of lawsuit allows the family to obtain compensation for the loss of their family member, including funeral expenses and the financial support the deceased would have provided.
Elevator accidents happen with surprising frequency despite safety designs and because of an elevator's obvious hazards.
Suspend riders in a cabin moving up and down along a vertical shaft dozens of times daily, and accidents are bound to happen despite safety systems, laws, and inspections.
Our Los Angeles personal injury attorneys, with their extensive experience and expertise, are providing a detailed review below. You can trust our team's knowledge and skills to handle your case with the utmost professionalism.
Common Causes for Elevator Injuries
One CDC report indicates nearly thirty elevator deaths and about ten thousand elevator injuries in the U.S. every year.
The reported accidents include not just the elevator cabin's release and fall down the shaft with riders aboard but also:
- riders or technicians falling down the empty shaft due to open safety doors;
- elevator speeds so high and stops so abruptly as to cause occupant falls;
- trips and falls over the misaligned cabin and building floors on entry and exit;
- crush injuries from closing doors or rising cabin against building floor;
- crush and pinch injuries from elevator cables and flyweights;
- burn injury or electrocution death from the elevator or building wiring;
- lung or brain injury or asphyxiation death from fumes in elevator shaft; and
- elevator platform collapses.
An elevator injury doesn't have to ruin the victim's finances and future. If you or a family member or friend has suffered an injury in an elevator accident, contact our personal injury attorneys. We know how to navigate the ups and downs of elevator accident claims for the best possible financial recovery.
Why Elevators Fail
Elevators fail because elevator systems are the risky product of imperfect human ingenuity. People aren't perfect, and that imperfection includes the people who design, install, inspect, repair, maintain, and ride elevators.
Few, if any, elevator makers are exempt from claims. Over the years, claimants have taken legal action against Otis, Arundel, Schindler, Abell, Viola, and other leading elevator makers.
The theories for financial recovery, which generally require proving some fault or violation of standards on the defendant's part, only begin with unsafe design-and-manufacture claims against elevator makers. The theories also include failure to reasonably:
- inspect and load test according to schedule;
- diagnose and repair or correct equipment malfunctions;
- lubricate, update, and maintain according to schedule;
- inspect and repair on notice of periodic or repeated malfunction;
- balance and adjust for proper leveling and stopping;
- ground and insulate electrical wires and equipment;
- lockout and warn during repair and maintenance;
- maintain operator controls and safe operating speeds;
- warn of occupant limits and load capacity.
What an Elevator Accident Claim Accomplishes
Retaining our personal injury lawyers to bring an elevator accident claim can result in substantial financial recovery. The process involves proving the negligent party's negligence or fault, which requires engineering knowledge and legal skills.
Our experienced team will guide you through each step of the legal process, ensuring you understand your rights and options.
Our expert civil litigators can first retain design and maintenance experts to conduct a thorough investigation of the claim. They could also testify to the defects or deviations from industry standards, customs, or safety regulations that caused the accident.
To recover, claimants must prove fault or defectiveness. We also know medical experts who can prove accident injuries and vocational and rehabilitation experts who can prove work disabilities.
Further, we know the accountants, economists, and other experts to make the best case for the amount of medical expense, wage and benefit loss, and other damages. Our skilled presentation can convince the defendants' insurers to settle your case for its maximum value or convince the jury that you should win that value at trial.
Retain The Best Elevator Accident Attorneys
Elevators are sophisticated pieces of equipment. Unlike a motor vehicle accident involving driver error, the cause of an elevator accident is often hidden within the elevator's mechanical and electrical operation, and repair and maintenance schedules.
Liability insurers don't pay based only on the injury. They instead pay only when their insured has done something wrong, which the claimant must prove.
That proof requires premier legal counsel, not a lawyer who handles only auto accident cases. Insurers pay claimants full value only when the claimant's skilled lawyer shows that the claimant will win full value at trial.
Our premier civil litigators have the resources, experience, and reputation for obtaining full recoveries in elevator accident cases. We have successfully represented numerous clients in similar cases, securing substantial compensation for their injuries and losses. This track record should give you hope for a successful outcome in your case.
We will investigate, prepare, and present your personal injury claim with no fee unless you recover. This means that you won't have to pay us unless we win your case. We believe in providing high-quality legal representation without adding financial stress to our clients. Retain top-rated injury lawyers you can trust to recover your claim's full value.
Injury Justice Law Firm is a top-ranked personal injury law firm serving victims of negligence in Los Angeles County, Orange County, Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, Riverside, and San Bernardino.