According to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), Houston leads the state in car accidents, with more than 58,000 crashes each year, resulting in more than 250 deaths, more than 1,300 serious injuries, and nearly 6,000 non-incapacitating injuries. Traffic-related accidents are one of the types of cases a Houston personal injury lawyer can handle, including accidents involving:
- Passenger cars
- Commercial trucks
- Motorcycles
- Buses
- Taxis and rideshares
- Motorcycles
- Bicycles
- Pedestrians
Whether the injury you suffered was mild or catastrophic, if it resulted in lost time from work or medical expenses, and someone else’s negligence caused it, you could seek compensation for your injuries.
Here is a look at some other types of accidents a Houston personal injury lawyer handles.
Dog Bites
More than 56 percent of the people in the U.S. own dogs. In Houston, that percentage is even higher, with about three-quarters of the human population residing in a home with at least one dog. While dogs benefit their owners, they can injure others.
Texas follows the “one bite rule” when seeking compensation for dog bite injuries. This makes the dog’s owner liable for the injuries their dog causes to others if they had reason to know that the dog was capable of aggression. Essentially, this means that the dog gets “one free bite” before its owner is held accountable.
Slips and Falls
According to the National Floor Safety Institute, about one million people are treated in U.S. emergency rooms each year due to slip and fall accidents. Slip and falls are the most common type of premises liability claim. Premises liability refers to the responsibility of the owner or possessor of a residential, commercial, or public property to regularly inspect the premises in search of hazards that can cause injuries to guests and to mitigate known hazards promptly.
Slip and fall accidents occur when someone slips-or trips-and falls as the result of a property hazard such as:
- Wet or freshly waxed floors
- Cluttered walkways
- Loose, worn, or torn flooring material
- Poor lighting, particularly in stairwells
- Damaged staircases or missing handrails
- Cracked sidewalks
- Potholes in parking lots
Wrongful Death
When an individual dies due to someone else’s negligence, their family members-including their spouse, children, or parents-can seek compensation for the financial and emotional costs of their loss through a wrongful death claim.
The compensation in a Texas wrongful death claim may include the loss of the deceased’s future earning capacity; loss of care, maintenance, services, and support that the deceased provided to their family members; mental pain and anguish experienced by family members as a result of the death; and the loss of inheritance that the deceased would have passed down to loved ones.