Personal Injury In Riverdale Park, Maryland

Riverdale Park is a small city in Prince George’s County in central Maryland, where it is a suburb of Washington, D.C. Because of its close proximity to the nation’s capital, Riverdale Park is often regarded as a neighborhood in the District of Columbia and is the home to many of the people who work there.

Just because it is a commuter town for another city, though, does not mean that nothing happens in Riverdale Park. On the contrary, accidents can happen anywhere, causing thousands of people every day to get hurt across the country. When these accidents were caused by someone else’s negligence, they can be especially frustrating to the victims who still have to deal with their injuries and costs of recovery, even though they were not at fault. Worse, accident victims are often powerless to stop their injuries and are frequently going about their own business at the time of the accident.

Because it is so unfair to expect accident victims to pay for their own costs of recovery when they were not at fault, Maryland allows them to turn to the courts to get compensation for their injuries. The personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian work to help those accident victims get the compensation they need and deserve.

Riverdale Park

Riverdale Park is a city in Prince George’s County just to the northeast of Washington, D.C. During the 2010 census, Riverdale Park had a population of 6,956, making it a densely populated area with only 1.68 square miles.

While Riverdale Park was founded in 1801 by Belgium immigrants fleeing the French Revolution, it was not incorporated into a town until 1920. Nevertheless, before being incorporated, the area that is now Riverdale Park was instrumental in the development of the nearby University of Maryland. The Calvert family, one of the most powerful families in the Baltimore area in the early 1800s, came into possession of much of the land that now falls within Riverdale Park’s boundaries. Over the course of the next 60 years, the Calverts sold or gave away a significant portion of this land to the fledgling University of Maryland, whose main campus now sits just outside of Riverdale Park, to the northwest.

During this period, Riverdale Park grew in importance due to its closeness to Washington, D.C., which put the town right nearby Route 1 and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. However, it was not until the 1890s that Riverdale Park started growing, filling with residents who used these transportation methods to get to work in the nation’s capital.

After incorporating into a separate and distinct town in 1920, Riverdale Park experienced huge growth after World War II as the federal government expanded and started pulling more and more workers to the metropolitan area. Additionally, the University of Maryland started growing and attracting more students, staff, and faculty, many of whom wanted to escape the traditional college scene and live further from schools. Riverdale Park became an attractive location for both groups and the population of the town exploded. Now, Riverdale Park is a popular residential and commuter area and boasts a vibrant Hispanic community.

Personal Injury Claims in Riverdale Park

Even though it is often considered a neighborhood of the District of Columbia, Riverdale Park is still located in the state of Maryland, so it abides by the personal injury law of that state. This means that, in order to succeed in a personal injury claim, you need to show that there were four elements present in your case:

1. The person you are suing had a duty of care to uphold,
2. That person failed to uphold their duty of care, breaching it,
3. That breach was the cause of your injuries, and
4. You suffered legal damages as a result.

Duty of Care

In Maryland, the general rule of the duty of care is that everyone needs to act like a reasonably prudent person whenever it is foreseeable that their conduct could hurt someone else. There are some instances that put more or less strain on how careful someone has to be. However, in any case, when someone else fails to uphold their duty of care towards you, and this leads to you getting hurt, they may be held legally liable for your injuries.

Breaching the Duty of Care

Whenever someone else has a duty of care to uphold, if they fail to do what it requires, they have breached it. Importantly, in Maryland, the duty of care can be breached intentionally or unintentionally. This means that if someone else only accidentally hurt you, they can still be held liable for your injuries. This is because, between a completely innocent victim and a negligent person, the law in Maryland puts the cost of the accident on the person who was acting negligently.

Causation

Even if someone else had a duty of care and breached it, they will only be held liable if that breach caused your injuries. After all, in most situations, it would be unfair to hold someone else liable for something they did not do. Proving causation in Maryland involves two things:

1. Showing that, but for the other person’s conduct, you would not have gotten injured, and
2. Showing that the breach of the duty of care and your injuries were not so far removed from each other that it would be unfair to the other person to hold him or her accountable for their actions.

Legal Damages

In Maryland, personal injury cases are all about getting you the compensation you need after an accident. This requires an account of all the ways you have suffered or else no one would know whether you have been adequately compensated. Your legal damages, though, go far beyond just the costs of your medical bills. They also include the future costs of dealing with your injuries, your lost wages and earning potential, the property damage associated with the accident, and the pain and suffering both you and your family have gone through.

Car Accidents

In Riverdale Park, car accidents are one of the most common scenarios that lead to a personal injury case. Other drivers owe you a duty of care to drive reasonably safe. However, it seems that they rarely take this legal obligation seriously. If their negligent driving causes an accident that injured you, you could be entitled to compensation.

Dog Bites in Riverdale Park

As in any residential community, dogs are common in Riverdale Park. However, where there are dogs, there are also dog bites. These injuries are handled differently than other personal injury cases because you cannot technically sue a dog. Instead, you sue their owner, but the owner might not have done anything wrong. To resolve this issue, Maryland personal injury law holds dog owners strictly liable for the injuries caused by their dogs and has laws dealing with exactly how to handle a dog bite case.

Premises Liability

Whenever you go onto someone else’s property – whether you are walking through a corner of their yard without their permission or shopping in a grocery store – there exists the possibility that you will slip and fall and hurt yourself.

Property owners have a duty of care to keep their visitors reasonably safe. Breaching this duty of care opens them up to premises liability. However, the measures that property owners need to take to keep you safe depend on your relationship with them. If you were on their property for their financial benefit, they need to take more steps to ensure your safety than if you were trespassing. However, even trespassers have legal rights to enforce if they get hurt on someone else’s premises.

Medical Malpractice in Riverdale Park

Doctors and other healthcare professionals in Riverdale Park owe a duty of care to their patients to provide adequate medical care. If this duty of care is breached, it can amount to medical malpractice. Whether this happens at an independent doctor’s office, at a clinic, or at the Kenilworth Park Medical Center, these injuries can be severe because the victims are already typically in poor health. Getting compensation for these injuries is crucial because of their severity and the potential they have for long term debilitation.

Gilman & Bedigian: Personal Injury Attorneys in Riverdale Park

These are just some of the most common or serious kinds of personal injury claims that the lawyers at Gilman & Bedigian handle in Riverdale Park.

If you have been hurt in an accident in Riverdale Park, you need legal assistance to protect your rights and interests. By hiring the personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian, you can rest assured that a group of professionals is taking care of your legal needs and ensuring that you get the compensation that you deserve so you can make a full recovery. Contact their Maryland law office by calling them at (800) 529-6162 or contacting them online for a free consultation.