A few years ago, I was in a pretty serious car accident. During the aftermath, I became really familiar with a lot of different types of lawyers. I worked with personal injury lawyers, insurance lawyers, and many others. Perhaps the most important, though, was the estate planning lawyer. I was really young, and neither my wife or I had thought about starting a will. But the accident kind of scared us into it. What would happen if one of us were to die? Even when still in the hospital, I was working with the lawyer to draw up a will. Now, I have some peace and security about what the future will be like if something should happen to me. And I have a lot of experience working with various types of lawyers! The accident was kind of a blessing in disguise in that way.
Some everyday products contain toxic chemicals that can make you sick. If you (or a member of your family) is affected by these toxins, then it is only right that you should be compensated by the responsible party. Unfortunately, these cases tend to be very complicated, and you may not receive the compensation you deserve. Why is this? Well, the difficulties lie in the following:
Identifying the Cause
Many toxic chemicals are slow-acting. Therefore, it is possible that you may not know how you got poisoned by the time you realize that you have been poisoned. Besides, toxic chemical exposure has some overlapping symptoms and effects. It gets even more muddled if you are exposed to different types of poisons at different times or even simultaneously.
Medical diagnosis may reveal that you are suffering from lead poisoning, but it will not be easy to identify the source of the poison. For example, how sure are you that the company you are suing for metal poisoning is the one that manufactured the product that is making you sick?
Gathering Evidence
The other problem is that, even if you succeed in identifying the source of your poison, you may not find the evidence to back it up. Consider a case where a person was poisoned by toxic metal when they were in kindergarten. Getting the evidence may be difficult because of the following
The potential defendants (in most cases businesses that used or manufactured the poisonous substances) know this. Therefore, they are likely to hide behind the lack of evidence to deny your claim.
Changing Scientific Developments
The third difficulty has to do with the changing nature of scientific research, developments and statistics. As you might imagine, toxic cases rely a lot on the available scientific result and data. Science is not stagnant; research is constantly unearthing new truths and disapproving long-held "facts." Therefore, a new study may reveal that a chemical that was previously considered safe is poisonous after all, and such a revelation can easily affect your case.
Does this mean that you should not bother instigating a toxic court case? Not in the very least. It just means that you should ensure that you have a case before submitting your demand letter. In fact, you need the input of a very experienced personal injury lawyer, such as those found at Geoffrey S. Gulinson & Associates PC, preferably one with experience in handling toxic tort cases.
Share18 February 2015
