Personal Injury In Rockville, Maryland

Rockville is the third-largest incorporated city in the state of Maryland, behind only Baltimore and Frederick. Located in the center of Maryland, it had a population of 61,209 during the census that was taken in 2010, and is a part of the massive metropolitan area that includes both Baltimore and Washington D.C. Rockville has become an integral part of the state of Maryland, and of the United States as a whole, because of its recent development and status as a technology hub.

However, just like in other cities, Rockville is a place where accidents can happen and where people can be victimized by someone else’s negligence. In these cases, it is important to have a solid personal injury attorney who can legally represent you both in and out of court to ensure you get the compensation that you need to make a full recovery. That is where the personal injury lawyers at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian can help.

Rockville

The city of Rockville, Maryland sits on the northwestern outskirts of the District of Columbia, in the center of Maryland. Rockville’s centralized location in the Mid-Atlantic States puts it in the middle of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area. This area has the fourth-most number of residents in the United States, with 9,331,587 residents. Its highly qualified and successful residents also make it the most educated and highest-income metropolitan area in the country.

Like most other cities in the area surrounding Washington D.C., Rockville has strong ties to the federal government, its institutions, and its agencies and contractors. In particular, Rockville is at the center of a technology and software hub that has grown around Interstate 270. This hub, dubbed the Interstate 270 Technology Corridor, includes the nearby cities of Gaithersburg and Bethesda, in addition to Rockville. The growth and development of the software and biotechnology companies in the area have spurred the local economy by bringing highly-qualified professionals to the area. With their presence, Rockville has turned into an upscale community, with a median household income of $100,239 in 2015.

Many of the local companies and industries that attract the nation’s top talent to Rockville are closely associated with the federal government. Defense companies like Lockheed Martin and software organizations like Westat employ thousands of people in the Rockville area, while countless smaller companies and startups employ a significant portion of the local workforce.

Additionally, Rockville is the seat of the government for Montgomery County. This County is home to about one million residents, making it the most populous county in the state of Maryland. In addition, Montgomery County has been ranked the eleventh-richest county in the United States. Together, the size and affluence of the area make the County – together with the County’s public school system – a huge employer in Rockville.

Personal Injury Claims in Rockville

While Rockville plays a uniquely integral part of the county and federal government, one thing that Rockville has in common with other cities in the U.S. is the fact that accidents can happen within its city limits. Unfortunately, when someone else makes a mistake or acts negligently if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it could be you who gets hurt the most. This is when a personal injury lawsuit can be the best way to protect your legal rights and interests.

Even though all personal injury lawsuits are unique because they are based on a different set of facts, they all have certain elements in common that you have to prove in order to win:

Someone else had a duty to keep you safe or free from harm,
That person breached their duty by failing to follow through on it,
That breach was the cause of your injuries, and
You were, in fact, hurt.

Duty of Care

The first and most important thing that has to be shown in every personal injury case is that the person you are suing had a duty of care. If they had no duty to keep you out of harm’s way, then they cannot be found liable for your injuries.

The duty of care that someone else owes you depends a lot on the particular circumstances of what happened. Generally, though, they have to act like a reasonable person and not act negligently. If they do not act in a way that would be reasonably safe for the circumstances and it was foreseeable that you could get hurt by their conduct, you should be able to get compensation for your injuries.

Breach of the Duty of Care

Once it has been determined what someone’s duty of care was, the next step is to show that they did not follow through on that duty. Even if their failure to uphold their duty of care was accidental or an oversight, that does not matter to you – you still got hurt, even if they did not mean for it to happen.

Causation

Even if someone else had a duty of care and failed to uphold it, if their breach did not cause your injuries then the law will not find them liable for your injuries. In order to get compensation from someone else for their role in your injuries, you have to show that you would not have been hurt, but for that person’s conduct, and that the conduct was not too far removed from your injuries.

Damages

Because personal injury cases are all about getting the compensation that you need and deserve to recovery from your losses, showing exactly how you were hurt is crucial. Fortunately, personal injury cases can compensate you not only for your past and future medical bills, but also your lost wages, pain and suffering, and other losses that you have had to go through as a result of the accident.

Car Accidents

One of the most common kinds of personal injury situations is a car accident. Recent years have shown that car crashes are happening more and more often, with fatality numbers increasing significantly. Unfortunately, Maryland and the city of Rockville are no exceptions to this trend.

Experts think that the sudden increase in road fatalities and crashes have a lot to do with both the economy, including the unemployment rate and gas prices, as well as the increased opportunities for drivers to be distracted behind the wheel. Between calling someone, texting, or using a new phone app, smartphones have made it far easier for drivers to pay attention to something other than the road. When this happens, they can cause a car accident without realizing how much danger they are putting other drivers into.

Dog Bites

Another common scenario that leads to a personal injury case is a dog bite. In Maryland and Rockville, pet owners are held strictly liable for the injuries that their pets cause. This makes it possible for you to get compensation from the owner of a dog if their pet attacks you.

Premises Liability

Because so many people in Rockville are affluent, there are a lot of property owners in the city. While owning a home or business and the land on which it sits is a huge part of the “American Dream,” owning real estate also means that the landowner have a duty of care to ensure visitors do not get hurt when they visit their property. Exactly what that duty of care entails, and how they can breach it, is the law of premises liability.

Premises liability makes a huge difference when you are the one visiting someone else’s property. Even if you are trespassing by being on the premises without the landowner’s permission, you still have rights. Those rights grow, however, if you are a licensee – someone who has permission to be on the premises – or if you are an invitee – someone who is on the premises for the owner’s financial benefit. If you are either an invitee or a licensee, the landowner owes you more of a duty of care. However, even if you are a trespasser does not mean that they can do whatever they want to you, without recourse or consequences.

Medical Malpractice

As a hub of biotechnology, Rockville might not have many more doctors than other places in the country. It does, however, design and manufacture some of the tools that doctors use across the nation. In some situations, these products can lead to medical malpractice issues, which deal with doctors and medical facilities and their duty to care for their patients.

Rockville Personal Injury Attorneys at Gilman & Bedigian

Accidents can happen anywhere in the world, and Rockville is no exception. If you were the victim of an accident, getting compensated for your losses is crucial because paying for your recovery yourself when someone else was ultimately responsible would be unfair.

This is why the personal injury attorneys at the law office of Gilman & Bedigian work to legally represent accident victims both in and out of court to ensure they get the financial help they need and deserve. Contact our law office online or call us at (800) 529-6162.