Personal Injury

Chicago personal injury lawyer who works tirelessly to win you the highest damage awards your claim entitles you to receive.

Personal Injury

Our personal injury clients’ success is our success! We strive to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve.

With a track record of success in winning the largest personal injury claims for our clients, we will work hard to win the largest damage award you’re entitled to receive.

Helping You Recover After a Serious Injury

In the aftermath of an accident, serious injuries can turn your life upside down. There is no way to prepare for the devastation that results. Painful injuries and emotional trauma can sometimes be just the start of your worries. Severe accidents can cause a loss in income, difficulty in obtaining future work, and the mental anguish can cause the loss of enjoyment in the things you used to love.

When this kind of damage results from an accident caused by the neglect of others, you are often entitled to personal injury compensation that seeks to make you whole.

A qualified personal injury lawyer with the expertise in and in-depth knowledge of what it takes to fight for your right to that compensation can make all the difference in your case. At Bizzieri Law Offices, Jim Bizzieri will fight relentlessly on your behalf to get you the compensation you are owed for your injuries. He will investigate your claim and assemble evidence in support of your case while enlisting the testimony of eyewitnesses and experts who can strengthen your case.

Our practice areas span from motor vehicle accidents to employment law to legal malpractice and more.

Fighting for the Compensation You Deserve

After an accident, you may struggle to balance mounting expenses while nursing your injuries. You may face uncertainty over when you can return to work, as well as how you will continue to provide for your family. We fight to recover the compensation you deserve after an accident. Such damages can provide financial relief for:

  • Medical treatment
  • Rehabilitative care
  • Lost wages
  • Future lost income
  • Property damage
  • Pain and suffering
  • Emotional trauma

We assist injury victims after a wide array of serious accidents, including injuries sustained on a construction site, negligence within a nursing home or a slip-and-fall on someone else’s property. We also provide knowledgeable guidance to victims of auto accidents, including those involving motorcycles, commercial trucks, public transportation and trains.

Providing a Personalized Service Throughout an Uncertain Time

We have helped hundreds of injury victims in Chicago and the surrounding areas of Illinois to obtain favorable outcomes in their lawsuits. As you recover from your injuries, we will work tirelessly on your behalf.

You will never have to be concerned about the status of your case as we maintain open communication while your case progresses. Our goal is to ensure your success with driven attorneys focused on helping you win.

Finally, we win the highest compensation awards for our clients. Read some of the most recent personal injury verdicts and settlement awards to get a sense of the scope of damages we are able to secure for our clients.

Get an Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer on Your Side

If you suffered harm due to the negligence of another, you have a legal right to fight for  compensation. Your personal injury attorney from Bizzieri Law Offices will provide you with legal guidance and support to assist throughout your case. Schedule a free consultation at our Chicago office, conveniently located on the southern tip of the city or call our offices at 773.881.9000

Some Things You Should Know About Personal Injury Law

Personal Injury Claims Are Often Based on Injuries Suffered as a Result of Neglect

The legal theory of neglect assumes a “Duty of Care.” When others fail to behave in a way that reasonably prevents foreseeable harm, that is seen as neglect. The responsibility to prevent foreseeable harm to others is essentially that duty of care. For instance, a driver on the roadways has a duty of care to avoid driving recklessly and endangering other drivers or pedestrians and even their own passengers. When that duty of care is breached, the victims that result may have a personal injury claim against them.

Whether it’s medical neglect, employer neglect, neglect by a product manufacturer or retailer, personal injury damages seek to make you whole when that neglect leads to injury.

 

Personal Injury Damages Can Cover Far More Than Medical Costs

Many people expect to fight for damages that cover medical expenses following an accident. Many people also expect that perhaps lost wages may be on the table in a personal injury claim. But did you know that future medical costs associated with your recover are also often accounted for in personal injury settlements? Likewise, if a disability results, your accommodation costs can be recovered from the responsible party. You may also fight for ongoing therapy, treatment for mental health, loss of enjoyment in the things you once loved to do, loss of the ability to work at the same capacity as before your accident and even, in some cases, pain and suffering are recoverable after an accident.

 

You Should Always Think Twice Before Taking Quick Settlement Offers Following an Accident

Insurers are not in business to award generous damages claims to victims of accidents caused by their clients. They seek to reduce the payouts they make on behalf of their clients at all times. If they make a quick settlement offer to you, you can believe their ultimate goal is to save money in the long run. A quick settlement offer is often an admission of liability and a knee-jerk reaction to limit any inevitable losses resulting from the accident. An experienced personal injury attorney fights for you to ensure you recover all of the compensation you deserve. We’re not here to save insurers money. We’re here to fight for you!

When you take a quick settlement, you will likely be required to sign a release freeing the insurer and their client from further claims related to the accident in question. That means you are on the hook for all future medical bills resulting from your injuries, loss of employment, other related losses and possibly more.

Personal Injury FAQ: Click on the Frequently Asked Questions Below to See Our Response

I may be partially responsible for an accident where I've been seriously injured. What are my chances I can win personal injury damages?

That depends. Liability is liability, but in Illinois personal injury damages where the victim shares in responsibility for the accident is governed by Comparative Negligence. Comparative negligence states that the amount of recoverable damages may be reduced by an amount or percentage representing the amount of liability the victim bears in the cause of the accident. In Illinois a modified form of comparative negligence is observed where in order to receive anything from a personal injury claim, the victim must bear less than 50% of the responsibility for the accident. 

So, your chances of getting personal injury damages are just as good so long as you bear less than 50% of the fault for the accident. When you do, the damage award can be reduced by whatever percentage of fault you are found to bear in the accident.  

How can I be sure someone was negligent in an accident I was involved in?

The theory of negligence in personal injury law is based on the idea that an individual or entity owes a “duty of care” to others. What others? That depends. A retail store owner owes a duty of care to its customers to maintain a safe establishment and ensure that any hazards that develop are removed to prevent harm in a reasonable amount of time. A driver has a duty of care to ensure that they take reasonable steps to avoid risk of harm to others on the roads. Likewise, a physician has a duty of care to provide reasonably safe treatment to their patients. However, do they have the same duty of care to those who are not officially their patients? What if a man who is not their patient is suffering a heart attack in a public restaurant, and the physician fails to act to treat them before EMTs can be called. Have they breached their duty of care? Not likely. They may not have acted so ethically in the moment, but the fact is in order to establish negligence in this case, you have to first establish that there is a patient/doctor relationship. There was none here. So before establishing neglect, you must first demonstrate that the person or entity owed a duty of care to the accident victim. 

Let’s say, for instance, a couple invites a repair man in their home to fix their furnace and they have a pit bull that has demonstrated twice before the propensity to bite strangers. The dog is running around loose in their home at the time of the visit. Failing to secure the dog when inviting the repair man into their home could leave the couple liable for personal injury damages. But what happens to this claim if it’s not a repair man invited into the home but an intruder who breaks into the home. Do they owe a duty of care to the repair man? Certainly. Do they have a duty of care to the intruder? Under Illinois law, property owners do not owe a duty of care to trespassing adults. So if the dog were to attack the intruder and cause serious injury. The intruder is likely on the hook for their injuries (perhaps along with some criminal liability, but that’s a different blog).

Once you have established a duty of care, you have to learn what their responsibilities under that duty of care are in your situation. Say, for instance, you suffer medical harm in an emergency room while being treated for a critical injury. In most cases, people will expect that anything that goes wrong during treatment, any mistakes that are made qualify as medical malpractice. But the duty of care owed in an emergency room situation may be different than what’s owed in a more normalized treatment environment. The question is what would another qualified and educated medical professional have done in the same situation under the same circumstances. If it can be established that other qualified physicians or medical professionals  likely would have made the same mistake under the same circumstances, there is no breach of their duty of care.

You can see how complex this question of neglect can be. So it’s important to get your claim evaluated by an experienced personal injury attorney who can carefully review the facts of your case and assess whether or not the potential defendant owed you a duty of care, whether they breached that duty of care, and to what extent that breach caused your injuries.

What mistakes should I avoid when filing a personal injury claim?

There are several mistakes to avoid whenever you file a personal injury claim. Firstly, never delay treatment after an accident. Delay in treatment can convey the message that the injuries sustained are not serious. And, while some serious injuries may not present right away with dramatic symptoms, brain injuries and soft tissue injuries can develop into very serious health issues requiring extensive medical care. Seeking medical treatment right away after your accident is the only way to be sure you can address any issues early and to protect your ability to fight for personal injury compensation. 

Another big mistake to avoid is speaking with an insurer when you have a personal injury attorney in the aftermath of an accident.  You can’t expect the defendant’s insurer to operate on your behalf. Discussing your claim with their representative(s) can negatively impact your case, providing necessary information to help build a case against you for their client. 

Can I recover personal injury damages if I'm injured at work?

It is indeed possible to recover personal injury damages when you’re injured at work. The fact is workers compensation is not the only recourse for someone injured on the job. There are several circumstance that lend themselves to a personal injury claim. Say, for instance, you are injured by a defective device or machine. If the manufacturer can be found negligent either in the machine’s design or production, or if they can be found to have not provided adequate warning on the machine’s inherent risk or instructions on its safe operation, you might have a product liability claim in addition to your workers compensation filing.

Can I file a personal injury claim if I'm injured while doing something inherently risky like skiing or like participating in a hockey league?

That may be a tricky question. It really depends on the injury, the accident that caused it and the assumption of risk. In personal injury law, there is an assumption of risk when one indulges in a sport like skiing or snowboarding. Because participating in the activity comes with a higher level of risk, the participant assumes a certain measure of that risk. If, however, the ski resort is found to be negligent in maintaining equipment or grounds or even equipment, and this contributed to the injuries, they may be held liable for damages. However, if a skier is injured simply gliding the slopes and makes an error that ends them smack up against a tree, they could be on the hook for medical costs due to the assumption of risk.

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773.881.9000

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