Personal Injury In Annapolis, Maryland

Annapolis is a small city of Maryland located on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River. Despite its small size as the seventh-largest city in Maryland, Annapolis is the seat of Anne Arundel County and is the capital of the state of Maryland. It is also a thriving nautical town, and has been called the “Sailing Capital of the World.”

However, just like all other cities in Maryland and the rest of the United States, Annapolis is a place where accidents can happen. When you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you could find yourself suffering from a serious personal injury through no fault of your own. Accidents like these can leave you with significant medical bills, which can be even more difficult to pay if you have to miss work or are left with a debilitation that makes it difficult to earn a living. This is when the personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help. By being your legal representative and filing a personal injury lawsuit, we can fight for your rights and interests and make sure you get the compensation that you deserve.

Annapolis

The city of Annapolis is located near the center of the state of Maryland, on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Its close proximity to other major cities in the area – it is 25 miles south of Baltimore and 30 miles east of Washington, D.C. – often leave it overshadowed. However, Annapolis had no fewer than 38,394 residents during the 2010 census and is a part of the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, which is the fourth-largest in the country with over nine million people.

This close proximity to the Chesapeake Bay and to other, larger, cities has also made Annapolis an important part of the country throughout its history. Annapolis was the temporary capitol of the United States for a short period of time following the American Revolutionary War and was where General George Washington relinquished his command of the American armed forces in the war in 1783. Congress also met in Annapolis immediately following the war before moving on to Philadelphia and then to Washington, D.C.

During the Civil War, Annapolis was near the front between the Union and the Confederates. While most of the fighting was to the west of the city, Annapolis was used by the Union as a hospital and as a prisoner of war camp for captured Rebel soldiers. The wealthy suburb of Parole, just to the west of Annapolis, on the other side of Route 50, even took its name from this camp after developing on the camp’s old site.

Since the turn of the 20th century, Annapolis has continued to hold a pivotal place in America. It is the home for the United States Naval Academy and continues to be the capitol for the state of Maryland, despite there being numerous other cities in the state with larger populations. Finally, its location on the Chesapeake Bay and its large harbor has made Annapolis the perfect area for sailboats which, together with the affluence of the surrounding area, led to Annapolis dubbing itself the “Sailing Capitol of the World.”

Personal Injury Claims in Annapolis

Nevertheless, one thing that Annapolis has in common with the rest of the cities in the United States is that accidents can happen within the city’s limits, and these accidents can lead to people getting hurt. While every one of these accidents is unique, there are four elements that are common to all personal injury lawsuits:

1. Somebody else had a legal duty of care to keep you safe,
2. They breached that duty,
3. That breach caused your injuries, and
4. You were, in fact, hurt.

Duty of Care

The law in Maryland and the rest of the United States requires that people act reasonably safely when they interact with others. What it means to “act reasonably safely,” however, is nuanced and often depends on the specific circumstances of the case. Most of the time, if it is foreseeable that acting unsafely would result in someone else getting hurt, then there is a legal duty of care that people have to uphold in order to prevent an accident.

Breach

Once it has been determined whether someone else had a duty of care and what they had to do to uphold it, a personal injury lawsuit requires you to show that they failed to do so. By breaching their duty of care towards you, the person who hurt you can be held liable for the injuries that you suffered because of their negligence.

Causation

However, even if someone else had a duty to keep you safe and failed to uphold it, if their breach was not the cause of your injuries then it would be unfair to hold them liable for your losses. To prevent this from happening, personal injury law requires that you prove two things:

1. You would not have been hurt, but for what the other person did, and
2. What the other person did was not too remote from your injuries that it would be unfair to hold him or her responsible for them.

Damages

Because personal injury cases are all about getting you the compensation that you need to recover from an accident, the law requires you to show exactly how you were hurt and what you have lost. Luckily, the cost of the medical bills that are associated with your recovery are not the only things that a successful personal injury case can get compensation for. If you lost wages or the ability to earn money in the future, you can get these losses compensated, as well, plus the cost of the pain and suffering that you and your family have been through because of your injuries.

Car Accidents

In Annapolis and elsewhere, one of the most common kinds of personal injury case stems from a car accident. People are legally required – they have a duty – to drive reasonably safely. However, distracted driving, drunk driving, and speeding are all examples of how lightly many drivers take this responsibility. When they fail to uphold this duty to drive safely and this causes an accident that leads to your injuries you can stand to get compensation for what you have lost.

Premises Liability

Owning property is the dream for many Americans, but it comes with both pros and cons. One of the downsides of being a property owner in Annapolis is that it can open you up to premises liability if someone on your property gets hurt by a dangerous condition. Even if you were trespassing on someone else’s property without their permission, you have legal rights that you can enforce if you get hurt in certain circumstances. Those rights only get more powerful if you have been invited onto the property by the landowner, or if you are financially benefitting the landowner by being there.

Medical Malpractice

Annapolis has numerous doctors and medical professionals, as well as the Anne Arundel Medical Center. Medical facilities and professionals all owe a duty of care to their patients to treat them reasonably safely. When they do not uphold that legal responsibility, their negligence or oversight can amount to medical malpractice in some situations. These forms of personal injury lawsuits are tricky because of the medical expertise that is often required to be successful. However, the injuries that often result from medical malpractice are serious or even fatal.

Annapolis Personal Injury Attorneys at Gilman & Bedigian

If you have been involved in an accident in Annapolis, the injuries that you suffered were probably not your fault. If that is the case, then it would be unfair to expect you to pay for the medical attention that you needed, as well as the other costs of recovery, out of your own pocket. Instead, you should be compensated for your losses by the person or people who were ultimately responsible for your injuries.

That is where the personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help. By legally representing you both in and out of court, we can fight for your rights and interests and ensure that you get the care you need without the expense. Contact us online or call our office at (800) 529-6162.