Personal Injury In Cheverly, Maryland

Cheverly is a small city in Prince George’s County, just outside of the boundaries of the District of Columbia. Cheverly is close enough to the nation’s capital to be the home of many of the people who work in the city and to have its own stop on the Metro. This has led to its rapidly increasing affluence.

Just like everywhere else in the United States, though, Cheverly is a place where accidents can happen and where innocent people can get hurt. If you were involved in an accident that was caused by someone else because they were not paying attention or were acting negligently, it can feel unfair since you are suffering due to something that someone else did. Worse, it can make you feel powerless because there was nothing that you could have done to prevent your injuries and now you are paying for them.

This unfairness is why Maryland allows people to file personal injury lawsuits against the person or people who caused their injuries. If successful, these lawsuits can result in the responsible parties compensating you for the losses you have suffered at their hands. The personal injury attorneys at Gilman & Bedigian work diligently so that their cases are successful.

Cheverly

Cheverly is a small city in Prince George’s County, just outside of Washington, D.C., with a population of 6,173 during the 2010 census. The town was founded late in 1918 and was not incorporated into a town in Maryland until 1931, highlighting its status as a suburb of the District of Columbia.

Despite being so close to Washington and often being considered as just another neighborhood of the city, Cheverly is not entirely dependent on the District of Columbia for its existence. In fact, despite being the first stop on the Metro to the east of Washington, D.C., the Cheverly Metro Station on Columbia Park Road has among the lowest average daily ridership counts of any station on the system.

Of course, this might have a lot to do with the high degree of affluence in Cheverly, as well, as wealthier people are more likely to drive a personal vehicle to work than they are to take public transit. According to census data for 2015, the median household income in Cheverly was $97,151, making Cheverly one of the wealthier areas in the entire state of Maryland. This wealth, though, is fairly new to the area: During the 2000 census, the median household income in Cheverly was only $65,431. This significant jump in overall wealth over the past fifteen years has not affected all of the residents in the town. In both sets of data, the percentage of people living below the federal poverty line has remained the same at just below seven percent.

Nevertheless, the new influx of money into Cheverly should be enough to spur the local economy to new heights through investment and infrastructure spending. Cheverly does not have much of a downtown area within its town boundaries forcing many residents to go to neighboring towns to fill their free time or run errands.

Personal Injury Claims in Cheverly

Because Cheverly is still outside of Washington, D.C. and inside the realm of Maryland, any accidents that happen there will be governed by the personal injury law of Maryland. This means that to be successful in a personal injury case, you will need to show four things:

1. The person or people you are suing had a duty of care to keep you safe,
2. They did not uphold that duty of care, effectively breaching it,
3. That breach was the cause of your injuries, and
4. You suffered legal damages, as a result.

Duty of Care

Generally, the duty of care in Maryland requires that people act like reasonably prudent people whenever it is foreseeable that their conduct could cause someone else’s injury. While there are situations that require people to act even more carefully, this general rule is usually what the duty of care entails. Not upholding it, though, is a breach of the duty of care, which can open up the acting party to legal liability.

Breaching the Duty of Care

If someone else fails to uphold their duty of care towards you, they are said to have breached it. Importantly, in Maryland, breaching the duty of care can be done on purpose or by accident. Therefore, even if the person who hurt you was only being negligent when they caused the accident, they can still be liable for your injuries and still owe you compensation for the costs of your recovery.

Causation

Just because someone else caused an accident and you got hurt in it does not necessarily mean that you are entitled to compensation from that person, though. Their conduct needs to be the cause of your injuries. If this were not the case, other people could be forced to pay for your injuries, even if what they did was not the cause of them. In Maryland, proving causation requires that you show two things:

1. But for the other person’s conduct, you would not have gotten hurt, and
2. The cause and effect chain between the other person’s conduct and your injuries is not so long or complex that it would be unfair to hold the other person liable.

Legal Damages

The whole point of a personal injury case is to get you the compensation that you deserve. Therefore, proving how much compensation that you deserve is a crucial portion of your case. Your compensation, though, depends on your legal damages, which are the costs you have accumulated that are associated with the accident. In Maryland, your legal damages include:

• Any property damage you suffered,
• Your medical bills,
• The cost of future medical treatment you will likely need,
• The wages you have lost because of the accident and your recovery,
• Any lost earning potential you suffered, and
• The pain and suffering that you and your family have gone through.

Once all of your legal damages are totaled, you have the amount of compensation that you deserve to receive in a personal injury lawsuit.

Car Accidents

The most common kind of personal injury situation in Maryland and in Cheverly is a car accident. Drivers owe you a duty of care to drive like a reasonably prudent person, but rarely take that responsibility seriously. Instead, they regularly text, drive drunk, or speed. If these poor driving habits lead to an accident that causes your injuries, you could be entitled to legal compensation.

Dog Bites in Cheverly

Most of Cheverly is residential, so many people in the city own dogs. However, this raises the likelihood of suffering a serious dog bite in the community. Dog bites in Maryland are treated differently than many other kinds of personal injury cases because you cannot get compensation from the actual cause of your injury – the dog. To get around this problem, Maryland holds dog owners strictly liable for dog bite injuries, allowing you to get compensation for your injuries or the injuries of your loved one.

Premises Liability

Property owners in Cheverly have a duty of care to keep their premises reasonably safe. If they fail to uphold this duty of care, they could be liable for your injuries if you slip and fall. Importantly, though, your relationship with the property owner determines what their duty of care entails. If you were trespassing, then the duty of care is far less onerous than it would be if you were on the premises for the owner’s financial benefit.

Medical Malpractice in Cheverly

Doctors and other medical professionals in Cheverly owe a duty of care to their patients, as well. A breach of this duty of care can amount to medical malpractice.

While these cases are somewhat rare, the injuries that they lead to are very serious and are often fatal. This is because medical malpractice victims are often in compromised health, already, and suffer complex internal injuries from the malpractice that are difficult to correct before complications occur, making them even more serious. Any medical professional can commit medical malpractice, from independent doctors working in clinics to the most experienced surgeons at Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly.

Gilman & Bedigian: Personal Injury Attorneys in Cheverly

While these are just some of the different kinds of personal injury case that you can have in Cheverly, the ones that we have not discussed are still very serious. All of them involve you getting hurt through no fault of your own, making it crucially important that you get the compensation that justice requires.

This is where the personal injury attorneys at Gilman & Bedigian can help. By representing you both in and out of court, we can ensure that you get the compensation you need and deserve to make a full recovery without straining your finances. Contact us online or call our law office at (800) 529-6162 for a free consultation.