Alton, Illinois Personal Injury & Auto Accident Attorney

Illinois Personal Injury Lawyer Serving Clients in Alton

No one in Alton, Illinois anticipates an accident will happen when heading to work or dropping the kids off at a school activity. However, dangerous motor vehicle collisions and other kinds of accidents happen more often than you might suspect in this city of over 27,000 people, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Auto accidents can cause serious and even fatal personal injuries. According to a fact sheet from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), over 32,000 fatal crashes occurred in the United States in 2015. These 32,000 fatal accidents led to over 35,000 individual deaths. Of that total, 914 fatal crashes and 998 fatalities occurred in Illinois. To put that figure in different terms, there were 7.8 deaths from auto accidents per 100,000 people in Illinois in 2015.

Accidents can be debilitating, preventing the injured victim from working while also struggling to pay costly medical bills. Whether personal injuries happen on the road, at work, or elsewhere, you should not have to be responsible for another party’s negligence. At Page Law we help people hurt in Illinois auto accidents caused by another person’s negligent or careless behavior. Our experienced Alton personal injury attorneys will talk with you about the specific facts of your case for free and we will help you determine if you need a personal injury attorney for your accident case.

Personal Injury Cases We Handle

Personal injury law is a broad area of the law that encompasses many types of accidents and injuries. The important thing to remember about personal injury law is that it allows injured people to file claims for compensation when another party’s negligence or bad actions resulted in an accident that caused injuries. At Page Law we handle a wide variety of personal injury claims and lawsuits, including but not limited to:

We represent car accident victims and motorcycle accident victims in Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, Independence, Columbia, Lee’s Summit, St. Joseph, O’Fallon, St. Charles, St. Peter’s, and the surrounding areas.

• Coal truck accidents;
• Beelman coal truck accidents;
• Auto accidents;
• Truck accidents;
• Semi-Truck accidents;
• Cement truck accidents;
• Dump truck accidents;
• Motorcycle accidents;
• Pedestrian accidents;
• Bicycle accidents;
• Boating and maritime accidents;
• Slip and fall accidents and other premises liability claims;
• Defective medical products and other product liability claims;
• Medical malpractice; and
• Dog bite injuries.

Call Page Law today to discuss your personal injury claim for free.

Types of Compensation Available to Accident Victims in Illinois

If you or someone you love suffered injuries in an accident in Illinois, what forms of compensation are be available to you? Plaintiffs in most personal injury cases can recover compensatory damages. Under 735 ILCS 5/13-202, personal injury plaintiffs can recover two types of compensatory damages:

• Economic damages: this form of compensatory damage provides an injured plaintiff with compensation for economic, or financial, losses. Economic damages are aimed at compensating a plaintiff for a specific financial loss, such as the cost of hospital bills, the costs associated with follow up medical care, rehabilitation costs, future medical care, and lost wages and income.
• Non-economic damages: this form of compensatory damage compensates an injured plaintiff for losses without a specific cost like medical bill has. Non-economic damages cover losses that are not financial. For instance, non-economic damages can compensate a plaintiff for pain and suffering, the trauma of disfigurement, and losing enjoyment of life. The list of non-economic damages is endless and they are particular to each specific case. There is no hard and fast rule for how to compensate such a loss, and non-economic damages are therefore often more controversial than economic damages.

Your case may be one in which punitive damages are appropriate. Punitive damages, unlike compensatory damages, are not designed to compensate an injured plaintiff for losses. Punitive damages are aimed at punishing the defendant for egregious or reckless behavior. In most car accident cases in Alton, punitive damages are not common. However, if the defendant’s behavior was so atrocious that the court believes it is important to punish the defendant for that conduct, punitive damages may be awarded.

Discuss Your Case with an Alton Car Accident Lawyer

Nobody wants to think about the possibility of a car crash or another type of accident. After a crash it’s difficult to think about contacting a lawyer when dealing with physical and psychological pain. However, discuss your case with an Alton car accident lawyer as soon as possible. Illinois law typically gives injured plaintiffs two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit. There are exceptions so it’s important to contact an experienced attorney immediately. Contact Page Law today to learn more about your options.