Mouth Injuries Caused by a Trip and Fall Lawsuit Attorney
Believe it or not, over 2 million people end up in emergency rooms on an annual basis after an unexpected fall. The cause of injury is usually from a slip and fall or trip and fall accident, where the victim is hurt by the impact of falling to the ground or hitting something on the way down. People can also strain muscles and ligaments from twisting motions, like ACL and MCL tears in the knees.
One area that’s often neglected when we think of trip and fall injuries is the mouth. This is an incredibly vulnerable section of the body, as it’s only protected by your lips. Inside the mouth are your tongue, gums, and rows of teeth. Damage to these areas can occur from the impact of striking the floor, stairs, furniture, shelf, or some other object that’s in the way.
This article is meant to provide information on the injuries that can happen to your mouth when you trip and fall down on someone else’s property. This may be an indoor area, like a grocery store, office building, or hotel. Or, you may have fallen down somewhere outdoors, like a parking lot or sidewalk in front of a shopping center. In either case, you may have the right to sue the owner of the property for monetary compensation. That way, you can secure the funds you need for medical bills, lost wages, and other expenses that are commonly associated with an accident.
If you sustained injuries to your mouth, teeth, or jaw following a trip and fall, contact our law firm and talk to a fall injury accident attorney.
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Trip and falls and slip and falls are the leading cause of injuries to the face, mouth, and teeth. Below are some of the most common injuries that are caused by a trip and fall incident:
- Severe pain that can cause breathing problems and difficulty eating or talking
- Excessive bleeding from injuries to the lips, gums, or tongue
- Permanent disfigurement – scars, jaw misalignment, and teeth discoloration
- Cracked / chipped teeth, aka tooth fracture
- Avulsed tooth, meaning the tooth has completely popped out its socket
- Broken jaw, also known as a jaw fracture
- Luxation, i.e., damage to the structures (ligaments and bones) that hold your teeth in place
Injuries like broken jaw and tooth avulsions must be taken care of right away. If you wait more than an hour to replace a tooth that’s completely dislodged from the socket, you will most likely lose the tooth on a permanent basis. Other injuries can make it difficult for you to breathe and consume food, which is considered a medical emergency. To safeguard your health, please go to the emergency room or a dentist’s office without delay if you fell down and injured your mouth.
Treatments for Mouth Injuries after a Trip and FallWith immediate medical attention, most people will experience full recovery from a mouth injury resulting from a trip and fall. But many victims need multiple treatments over a period of several months, maybe even years. If the injury is severe, there may be some form of disfigurement or health complication that the patient is left with for the rest of their lives.
Your doctor or dentist will help you determine the best course of treatment, which may include:
- Bone grafting
- Plastic surgery
- Dental implants
- Jaw surgery
- Root canal
There’s no denying that dental treatments and cosmetic surgery are expensive, and the recovery from these procedures can be long and painful. Additionally, you are likely to need time off from work, which is another monetary loss that you shouldn’t have to deal with. We can help you obtain compensation for these and other monetary losses, which we can go over with you during a free case review.
Can I Sue for a Trip and Fall Causing Damage to my Mouth?If you were injured from a hazardous condition on someone else’s property, you generally have the right to file an accident claim for monetary damages like cost of medical treatments, pain and suffering, and lost income from your job.
Your right to a lawsuit is based on premises liability, which has to do with the duty that property owners have towards people on their property. This includes customers, delivery drivers, mail carriers, neighbors, and even friends and family. Essentially, owners must maintain their premises and take care of anything that has the potential to cause an accident. For instance, here are some of the issues that may lead to someone tripping over something and falling down:
- Debris in the aisles at a store
- Edges of pallets and store displays in high traffic areas
- Cords and wires not being properly secured
- Poor lighting
- Missing tiles / uneven floors
- Cracks in sidewalks
- Cracked or broken steps
- Curled up edges on carpets and rugs
- Merchandise falling off of shelves
- Tools left out in areas under construction
This is not a comprehensive list, but it’s meant to provide you with a sense of how you can be injured by someone else’s negligence. As a trip and fall accident victim, it’s essential to discuss your rights with a personal injury lawyer. Our attorneys have decades of experience in the recovery of trip and fall and slip and fall settlements, and know what it takes to bring you maximum payment.
How Much can I Receive from a Trip and Fall Case?Those who sustained mouth injuries due to a trip and fall can end up with amounts that range from $15,000 to $2,000,000 or more. We know this is a very wide range to work with, but you must consider that falling down unexpectedly often results in multiple injuries. Thus, the amount you are entitled to is based on all the injuries you have, and not just damage to your mouth and teeth.
Compensation awards we have recovered for accident injury victims often start at around $75,000 and go all the way up $5,000,000 and above. But there are cases where the settlement is lower, and that’s not an indication that the claimant was cheated. Rather, it goes to show that trip and fall case values are specific to each and every claim, which is why you should always verify the amount of compensation you can receive with a trip and fall lawsuit attorney.
How Long Do Trip and Fall Claims Take to Settle?Settling a claim for mouth injuries caused by a trip and fall can take as little as a few weeks, or as long as 3 or more years. Though we can’t predict just how long it will take to reach a settlement in your case, we would say that the majority of trip and fall claims at our office are resolved within 4 to 10 months. As a general rule, claims against commercial property owners (major retailers, apartment leasing companies, etc.) take 8 months or longer than cases involving homeowners. Overall, lawsuits where the defendant is a public entity, like a city or county agency, take the longest to settle. With these cases, you are typically looking at a timeline of 1 to 2 years, though payments for minor injuries may settle within a few months.
How Much Time You have to File a Trip and Fall Injury LawsuitFrom the moment of being injured in a trip and fall, the statute of limitations to file a lawsuit is 2 years. The one notable exception is if you fell down due to a dangerous condition on government property. In that case, you must file a compensation claim against the city, county, etc., within 6 months. For the moment, we will focus on the deadline to sue a private entity, then expand on how to sue the government for a trip and fall in the next section.
The deadline of 2 years is a statutory requirement by the court system, so if you are more than 24 months of when you had the accident, you generally lose the right to seek monetary damages. However, those who discover an injury caused by the incident at a later date can ask for an extension from the court system if they need additional time. This rule is to account for injuries like dementia from a trip and fall and other conditions that may not develop for years after a fall-related accident. Even if you are past the statute of limitations for a personal injury lawsuit, the courts may allow you to file a claim within 1 year from when you were diagnosed.
This is just one of several issues that can affect how long you have to sue for a trip and fall incident. Overall, you can go by the standard of 2 years as the deadline for a lawsuit, but it’s a good idea to contact us and verify the exact amount of time you have for a fall injury accident claim.
Your time limit to sue for injuries caused by negligence of a government entity is only 6 months, compared to the deadline of 2 years you would normally have for a personal injury lawsuit. That means you need to file a claim with the appropriate agency if you tripped and fell in a building, park, train station, or any other property that’s operated by a city, county, state government.
This is just one of the many complications that you will face when you are attempting to hold a public entity responsible for an injury. For example, there are different claim forms for each city and county, plus separate forms if you fell down and hurt yourself on property owned by a school district. Filling out the paperwork and filing it in a timely manner is a challenging process for the average victim, as they lack the knowledge to prove that a government worker or department is liable for their harm and suffering.
Even if you make a solid argument for compensation, government agencies have a tendency to deny claims. But there’s no need to give up, since you have the option of filing a lawsuit. This is when a slip and fall accident lawyer really counts, though it’s best to obtain representation right from the start. Regardless of where you are in the legal process, don’t hesitate to give us a call if you have been injured from a trip and fall.
Hire a Trip and Fall Attorney for $0The trip and fall lawyers of DTLA believe victims are entitled to free legal services, which is why all clients at our law firm are offered a Zero Fee Guarantee. If you are eligible for a trip and fall injury claim, we cover the costs of representing you and ask to be reimbursed by the defendant as a part of your settlement award. So, winning your is the only way we get paid, and you owe us $0 for legal services if we don’t recover compensation on your behalf.
No matter what challenges lie ahead of you on the journey to recovery, please know that you are not alone. Our legal team is here to fight for you and the payment you deserve, so contact us to schedule a free consultation.
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