No matter what kind of vessel you’re on or what body of water you’re operating it in, you have a duty under state law to act responsibly and lawfully around other people in the water. Anyone who breaches that duty could hold civil liability for any injuries they cause as a result.
Filing suit over a boating injury works similarly to suing over a car crash in some ways and differently in others, as any experienced personal injury attorney can tell you. When you want a fair shot at getting financial compensation for your injuries, you should make contacting and working closely with a skilled York boat accident lawyer one of your top priorities. Founder Jon Ostroff is a boat owner and is very familiar with the safety rules out on the water.
Building a Boat Accident Claim Around Negligence
As is the case with most other injury claims, holding someone else accountable for causing a boat accident typically requires proving that they were legally negligent. Your attorney needs to show that it’s more likely than not that all the following conditions apply to your accident:
- The person you’re suing owed you a duty of care requiring them to act responsibly under specific circumstances
- They breached their duty through a specific reckless, careless, or illegal act
- That breach of duty was the main and direct cause of your accident
- Your accident directly caused you to suffer an injury bad enough to require professional medical care
Everyone who takes a watercraft out into a navigable waterway also takes on the duty of care to follow boating laws and watch out for other people near them. Proving that someone else actually did something to violate that duty and that their actions were the primary cause of your injuries can be far from simple, and guidance from a seasoned York boat crash attorney can be vital to building a strong claim.
Getting Around Common Obstacles to Recovery
Support from legal counsel can also be important to navigating around legal and procedural rules that might otherwise keep you from getting the money you need for your damages. For example, when a person claims you were negligent and a court agrees with them, that court may assign you a percentage of comparative fault for your own injuries and either reduce the total amount of money you can get through your claim or prohibit you from getting paid anything at all.
State law generally gives people just two years after getting hurt to file a lawsuit, no matter how long their injuries are expected to last. When you want to effectively demand every cent of what you deserve for your losses within this strictly enforced deadline, you need assistance from a well-known boat accident lawyer in York.
Speak with a York Boat Accident Attorney Today
Accidents away from land can be uniquely dangerous and difficult to get fair civil recovery for. Whether you’ve been involved in an injury claim before or not, guidance from a legal professional who’s handled cases like this successfully in the past is essential to protecting your rights and securing the best possible case resolution.
A York boat accident lawyer can give you the custom-tailored support you need to get paid fairly for the harm someone else caused you. Call us today to learn more during a free, no-obligation consultation.
