Property holders are meant to keep their premises reasonably safe. When they do not, the argument is rarely about whether you fell - it is about whether they should have seen it coming.
A fall on an unlit stair with no handrail produces broken bones, traumatic brain injuries and catastrophic spinal damage, and fatalities are not uncommon. The dismissive name is already doing work for the other side before anyone has opened a medical record. Attorneys J. Aaron Cooke and Jeffrey A. Cooke are both local to Lafayette, and premises liability has been part of this practice since the firm's founding in 1974.
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Trips, slips and falls - wet floors, uneven walks, icy surfaces, poorly lit staircases, missing handrails. Animal attacks where an animal was not properly secured. Drownings, often where a pool or hot tub was left unattended and unsecured. And negligent security, where the measures protecting people from violent crime were inadequate or simply absent.
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These claims involve grocery stores, parking garages and commercial premises, and they equally involve neighbours, landlords and relatives. The duty attaches to the property, not to whether bringing a claim feels awkward.
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That the owner owed a duty of care to attend to the property and remove clear dangers. That the duty was breached by failing to maintain it. That the breach caused the injuries. And that those injuries produced real losses - medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering. Miss one and the claim will not stand up, however badly somebody was hurt.
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Photographs of the hazard and of the injuries. Surveillance video, which is frequently overwritten on a timer measured in days. Maintenance records, which show whether a hazard had been reported and ignored. Medical records establishing treatment and cost. The video is the one people lose simply by waiting.
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Where a property or business owner neglected that duty, the injured person can recover for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. Free consultation on 765-340-2776.
The same order every time, because most of the costly mistakes in injury work come from doing step four before step two.
A phone call, in your own words, in whatever order it comes out. You do not need the police report in front of you and you do not need to have it organised. If the answer is that you probably do not need a lawyer, you get told that on the first call, and it still costs nothing.
The firm's published standard is that you should only hire it if it can put you in a better position than you would be in on your own. That is why the first conversation is a conversation rather than a sales call, and why some of them end with a recommendation to do nothing.
Records, bills, wage information, photographs, witness accounts, and whatever the other side has already put in writing. Meanwhile the firm helps process health and auto medical-payment benefits at no charge, which is usually the part quietly bleeding money while everyone waits.
Every offer is passed to you as it arrives, with a straight assessment of whether it is fair and reasonable. Nothing settles without your permission. If the number will not move, the file gets prepared for trial rather than argued about indefinitely.
Not automatically, though you should expect the argument. Whether a danger being open and obvious defeats a claim depends on circumstances, including whether the owner should have anticipated people would encounter it anyway.
It is useful that an incident was recorded at all. What is worth knowing is that the report was written by the business, for the business - so keep your own record of the same facts, with photographs, taken the same day.
Claims are built on more than eyewitnesses: the physical condition itself, cleaning and maintenance records, prior complaints, and the medical evidence of what happened to your body. No witness is a difficulty, not a verdict.
Weather does not automatically excuse a property owner, and it does not automatically implicate one either. What was done about it, when, and whether that was reasonable is the actual question.
Indiana sets limits and they vary. No number is printed here on purpose. What is genuinely time-critical is the video, so call early even if you are undecided.
Indiana does not simply make dog owners pay. Which rule applies to you depends on why you were there, and most people are surprised by the answer.
Personal injury is not one of the things this firm does. Since 1974 it has been the only thing it does, which means nobody here is fitting your claim in between a house closing and a divorce.
OSHA puts construction among the highest accident rates of any industry in the country, and the consequences on a site are rarely mild.
The rest of the practice is on the practice areas index. If you would rather not take any of this on description alone, the admissions and memberships are all checkable against their sources, and the questions people actually ask cover the process before you speak to anyone.
The first conversation is free and puts you under no obligation. Bring the report, the photographs, the letter from the insurer, or nothing at all.
Contacting Cooke Law Firm or Cooke Law Firm does not create an attorney-client relationship, and nothing on this site is legal advice. Please do not send confidential information until a written engagement is in place. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.