Personal Injury In Mount Airy, Maryland

Mount Airy is a city in northern Maryland and is part of both Carroll and Frederick counties. It is also a part of both the Washington Metropolitan Area and the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, and many of the residents who live in Mount Airy commute to both cities for work. Mount Airy’s close proximity to the city of Frederick also makes it a great place to live for workers in that city, as well.

As a commuter city, though, Mount Airy sees its fair share of accidents that cause innocent people to suffer serious personal injuries. These can be especially frustrating to the victims because they often did not cause the accident and there was often little that they could do to prevent it.

If you or someone you love should ever be the victim of an accident in Mount Airy, you need legal representation to ensure you get the compensation you are legally entitled to receive. The personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian can file the personal injury claim that gets you the financial help you need to make a full recovery after an accident.

Mount Airy

The city of Mount Airy stretches into two of the counties in northern Maryland – Carroll County and Frederick County. The strange setup was the result of Carroll County defining its boundaries in 1837, drawing their county line along the south branch of the Patapsco River and along what is now South Main Street in Mount Airy. Just to the south of Mount Airy is the rural location known to locals as the “Four County Area,” where Carroll, Frederick, Montgomery, and Howard counties all meet.

Despite the confusion, Mount Airy has been an important place in Maryland since the middle of the 1800s. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad passed through Mount Airy as early as 1830 on its way from Baltimore, to the east, and to Frederick, to the west. This path ran right through Mount Airy, though the city’s elevation posed a problem for early train travel. Because Mount Airy has an elevation of 830 feet, four inclines were used to bring trains up to the city, often with the help of horses and steam winches. Only after trains got more powerful were these inclines abandoned in 1839.

In addition to the railroad passing through Mount Airy in the city’s early days, the National Road also ran through the area on its way from Baltimore into the then frontier of Illinois. This brought numerous people through Mount Airy on their way west, adding bustle to the city’s beginnings.

Recently, Mount Airy has benefitted from the massive growth of the Washington, D.C. metropolis, growing nearly nine times over in size from the years after World War II. Mount Airy had a total of 9,288 residents during the 2010 census, with nearly 6,000 of them coming to the area since 1990. Many of these residents are fairly affluent, as well – Mount Airy has a high median income per household, and only 3.3% of the population was beneath the poverty line in the 2000 census.

Personal Injury Claims in Mount Airy

Even though Mount Airy spans two counties in Maryland, it is the state’s personal injury law that dictates what happens in a lawsuit stemming from an accident that results in someone getting hurt. This means that, if you sue someone else to get compensated for the injuries you have suffered in an accident that they caused, you will need to prove four things:

1. The other person had a duty of care to keep you out of harm’s way, or to refrain from hurting you,
2. That other person breached their duty of care,
3. That breach was the cause of your injuries, and
4. You were hurt, suffering either financial or physical damages.

Duty of Care

In Maryland, everyone has a legal obligation to act like a reasonably prudent person whenever it is foreseeable that their conduct could cause an injury to someone else. This is the duty of care and, unfortunately, many people do not take it seriously. When they do not, their negligent conduct could amount to a breach of the duty of care.

Breaching the Duty of Care

Once it has been established what the duty of care entailed, if the person you are suing is found to have not upheld their legal obligations to keep you out of harm’s way, they are said to be in breach. Under Maryland’s personal injury law, it does not matter that this breach of the duty of care happened on purpose or by accident – either can be the basis for holding someone else liable for your injuries.

Causation

However, even if the person you are suing had a duty of care and breached it egregiously, that does not necessarily mean that they will be held liable. You still have to show that their breach of the duty of care was the cause of your injuries. This requires showing two things:

1. You would not have been hurt but for the other person’s conduct,
2. The other person’s breach of their duty of care was not so remote from your injuries that it would be unfair to hold them liable.

Damages

Because Maryland’s personal injury law is focused on compensating you for what you have lost, it is crucial to show exactly how much you have been harmed in the accident. Otherwise, there would be no way of knowing whether you have been fully compensated or not. Luckily, Maryland recognizes numerous aspects of damages that you can be compensated for, including the medical bills you have already paid and those you will likely pay in the future, your lost wages and lost earning capacity, any property damage you have suffered, and the pain and suffering you and your family have gone through.

Car Accidents

One of the most common kinds of personal injury cases in Mount Airy comes from a car accident. Drivers owe a duty of care to the others on the road to drive with reasonable safety but seem to rarely uphold this standard. People drive while distracted or while under the influence all the time, and whenever this leads to a car accident that causes your injuries, you could be entitled to compensation for your losses.

Dog Bites in Mount Airy

Many people in Mount Airy have dogs as pets. Unfortunately, even if a dog seems friendly and the owner insists it will not attack, dog bites happen frequently. In Maryland, dog owners are held strictly liable for the bites of their dogs, meaning they have to pay even if they did nothing wrong, themselves. Seeking compensation after a dog bite is crucially important when the victim is a child, as they often are – children bitten by dogs can suffer injuries that stunt their development and cause disfigurements that require extensive treatment in the future, so getting financial compensation to cover those costs is vital.

Premises Liability

Anyone who owns property in Mount Airy also has a duty of care to keep their property safe for visitors. This duty of care applies to people from mere homeowners to companies who run grocery stores and other businesses in Mount Airy. If they fail to uphold this duty of care, these property owners could face premises liability if a hazard or other danger on their property causes you to get hurt. These injuries, called slip and fall injuries, can be compensated through a personal injury lawsuit even if you were trespassing on someone else’s property if the circumstances are right.

Medical Malpractice in Mount Airy

Doctors and other medical professionals in Mount Airy also have a duty of care to their patients to give adequate medical help. If they breach their duty of care, it can even amount to medical malpractice. This applies to all medical professionals, from doctors to nurses to anesthesiologists, and to all medical practices, from small and independent clinics to Mount Airy Health Services.

Gilman & Bedigian: Personal Injury Attorneys in Mount Airy

Being the victim in an accident that you did not cause can be frustrating because there was often very little that you could do to avoid the situation. Because it would be unfair to expect you to pay for the costs associated with your injuries and other losses from the accident, Maryland allows you to file a personal injury lawsuit against the person or people who caused the accident to get compensation.

Making sure this lawsuit is successful often requires legal help. This is where the personal injury lawyers at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help. By hiring us and letting us serve as your legal representative both in and out of court, we can fight for your legal rights and interests and get you the compensation you need and deserve. Contact us online or call our law office at (800) 529-6162 for a free consultation.