York PA Personal Injury Lawyers

If you are the victim of personal injury, hiring an attorney can be an important part of the recovery process. Injury victims recover more financial compensation when they hire a personal injury lawyer compared to those that do not have a lawyer handling their damages claim.

Thank you for all your hard work to help me through these tough times and win my case. I greatly appreciate it very much.
_{– Client of Schmidt Kramer}

For more than 25 years, the legal team at Schmidt Kramer have been helping to protect the rights of injured Pennsylvania residents and we have the experience to handle every part of your personal injury lawsuit. Our award winning lawyers have a proven record of success including a $10,043,952 verdict for a volunteer firefighter that suffered a spinal injury when a barn collapsed, a $4,034,000 verdict for a client that lost his eyesight in an hunting incident and a $1,200,000 jury verdict for the parents of a 5 year old that suffered a brain injury after he had a surgical procedure.

It’s free of charge to talk to a York personal injury lawyer at our firm about your potential case and there are no upfront fees if you decide to hire us.

Schmidt Kramer. Free Consultation. Ph: (717) 888-8888.

How Can a Personal Injury Lawyer Help?

Hiring a personal injury lawyer can help to ensure that your best interests are being protected while you are recovering from your injuries. Often, insurance companies and the lawyers that represent them will become involved shortly after an insurance claim is filed. The lawyers at Schmidt Kramer know how negotiate with insurance companies on behalf of our clients and we work hard to recover the maximum compensation that they may be eligible to receive.

There are many benefits to having an attorney handle a personal injury case, including:

Representing your best interests and fielding settlement offers
Personally handing your case and answering any questions you may have
Collecting critical pieces of evidence to build a valid claim
Investigating your accident scene thoroughly to prove the at-fault party was negligent
Interviewing eyewitnesses who were present during your injury
Documenting and calculating all of your losses for adequate compensation
Confirming that all insurance claims, court documents and other paperwork is filed correctly and in a timely manner

Having an experienced York personal injury lawyer on your side can make all the difference in the outcome your case. The sooner you contact us, the sooner we can help you recover compensation. Our knowledgable attorneys have been recognized by some of the top legal organizations nationwide, including Best Lawyers® and Super Lawyers.

Call (717) 888-8888 now for our free consultation.

Compensation Available for Personal Injuries

Depending on the severity of an injury, some victims may never fully return to full health. Future treatment and long term medical care can become an important component in the damages that are calculated for your lawsuit. Recovering significant compensation can help victims to afford the care that they need.

If your immediate needs are not covered by the insurance company, a lawyer can help discuss the legal options of suing the at-fault party for compensation. We have experience dealing with insurance companies and filing lawsuits to pursue compensation. We understand what it takes to be successful in both situations.

Pennsylvania law allows you to pursue various forms of compensation, including:

Medical Expenses

You may be entitled to compensation for medical expenses including the costs of all medical treatment received as a result of your injury and any required care in the future. This can include payment for hospital bills, surgeries, doctor visits, medical tests, physical therapy sessions, medications, and more.

If you suffer a personal injury, document all medical expenses by keeping records of bills related to your treatment and recovery. This information can help a knowledgeable York personal injury lawyer calculate the value of your current medical expenses and determine the estimated cost of future treatments.

Lost Wages

If your injury has prevented you from working, you may be able to receive compensation for any lost wages. This includes wages lost when you were physically incapable of working, and wages lost when you were not at work because you were receiving treatment.

Calculating lost wages for some people can be difficult if you work as an independent contractor, business owner or seasonal worker. This is why you should consult with an attorney who can determine exactly how much income you have lost from your personal injury.

Loss of Earning Capacity

If you can no longer work or physically perform the essential functions of your job, you may be able to recover compensation for loss of earning capacity. If possible, ask your employer for a letter detailing your normal rate of pay, hours lost being unable to work, and the total amount of compensation lost as a result of your accident.

Suffering from a permanent physical disability such as a traumatic brain injury or spinal cord injury may also allow you to pursue compensation for the way your disability directly affects your decreased and future earning capacity. Consult with a personal injury attorney in York to discuss if your ability to earn money in the future will be impacted as a result of having a permanent disability.

Pain and Suffering

Compensation for pain and suffering depends on the type of injury and the duration of your recovery time. It accounts for any physical pain suffered and the severe discomfort endured during the accident and after your injury.

It can be difficult to calculate the monetary value of these damages because there are no bills for pain and suffering. Having a qualified York personal injury lawyer on your side who knows how to gather any relevant evidence to properly value pain and suffering damages can help you obtain the amount of compensation you deserve.

Loss of Companionship

In personal injury cases, loss of companionship damages relates to the impact your injuries have on your relationship with your spouse. This can include the inability to be affectionate or maintain a sexual relationship. It can also lead to emotional pain if your marriage ends in a divorce.

Recovering compensation for loss of companionship most often requires medical proof of sexual disability. Dealing with insurance companies may require you to also provide a written statement from your spouse describing intimate details which can make you uncomfortable. A personal injury attorney in York can handle negotiating these issues with insurance companies or claim adjusters on your behalf.

Property Damages

In addition to recovering compensation for physical and emotional injuries, you are entitled to compensation for property damage that resulted from the accident. This can include damage to any vehicles, clothing, cellphone, jewelry, or other items.

You can obtain compensation for the cost of replacing or repairing personal property damages. Our York personal injury lawyers can help you gather receipts for any damaged items and calculate the fair market value for each item.

Contact Schmidt Kramer so we can determine the amount of compensation available to you. We understand that recovering compensation for a personal injury cannot change what happened, but it can hopefully help you get closer to where you were before you were injured.

Fill out a Free Case Evaluation form today so we can start reviewing your case.

Proving a Personal Injury Case

Every personal injury case has four elements of negligence that must be proven in order to obtain the compensation you are entitled from the at-fault party. These include:

Duty of care – This means the at-fault party was legally obligated to act in a reasonable manner to not cause you any harm or injury. We must show that he or she had a duty of care to behave the way a reasonable person would in a similar situation.
Breached duty of care – This means that the at-fault party acted or failed to act as a reasonable person, breaching his or her duty of care. We must show that the at-fault party breached the duty of care in some way. For example, a duty of care could be breached if the other driver was speeding or driving under the influence of alcohol.
Causation – This means there is a distinct link between the breach of duty of care and any injuries suffered. We must show that you would have not been injured were it not for the negligent actions of the at-fault party.
Damages suffered – This means there were damages suffered as a result of your injury. We must show that your injuries led to damages, such as medical bills or lost wages from missing work.

If these elements are present, you may have a valid personal injury case and be entitled to maximum compensation. Call our personal injury attorneys in York to schedule a free, no obligation consultation.

Contact our office today by calling (717) 888-8888.

Statute of Limitations for a Personal Injury Claim

There is a limit on the amount of time you have to file a lawsuit after suffering some type of harm. This law is called a statute of limitations and once it expires, you lose the right to file a lawsuit. The statute of limitations for a personal injury claim in Pennsylvania is two years from the date of the injury.

You may be able to obtain compensation through an insurance claim, but it can be a complicated process. It can take longer than you think, and the statute of limitations will continue to run while you are dealing with the insurance company. This is why it is so important to contact a York personal injury attorney to get the process started right away.

Our lawyers at Schmidt Kramer understand the time restraints that apply to your specific situation. We know how to deal with the insurance claims process while being prepared to file a lawsuit if we are unsuccessful.

Complete a Free Case Evaluation form now.

What to Do After a Personal Injury

The moments following a personal injury can be confusing and overwhelming. You may not know what to do or who to turn to if you or a loved one is injured because of someone else’s negligence or recklessness.

By taking the following steps immediately after your accident, you can help ensure your well-being and preserve your claim for compensation:

Seek Medical Assistance

The first thing to do after an accident is seek medical attention for your injuries, even if you do not consider your injuries to be serious or life-threatening. Sometimes injuries appear less severe at first, only to become much more serious over time. If you wait to seek treatment, your injuries could progress and become more difficult to treat.

This is why it is important to be examined by a medical professional. A doctor can conduct a detailed medical examination to diagnose your injuries and provide you with the proper treatment plan.

Report the Incident

After a personal injury, file a police or accident report. Having an official report can help prove your claim and possibly improve your chances of obtaining fair compensation from the insurance company. Ask for a copy of the report as well.

Be sure to be detailed and accurate when completing the report or providing information to the person completing the report. However, do not admit fault or wrongdoing. Let the investigation play out so all of the facts can come to light.

Even if you believe you were somewhat responsible, keep this to yourself because it could hurt your chances of recovering compensation. Your level of fault will be determined during the investigation.

Collect Evidence

Gather information at the scene by taking notes and photographs to help you remember all the details. Write down a description of what happened, where it happened, and how it happened. Take pictures of the scene, your injuries and anything else you think is important to capture.

As time passes, it can be difficult to recall information. This is why it is important to begin documenting things as soon as you have a chance. Otherwise you could forget important details that could affect the amount of compensation you can recover.

Talk to Witnesses

Whenever an accident happens, talk to witnesses who saw the event unfold. Write down the names, addresses and contact numbers from each eyewitness. Obtain a written statement if possible or take detailed notes on what they say they saw. It is possible they saw things you were unaware of that can help prove another party is at-fault for your injuries.

Contact a York, PA Lawyer

When a personal injury is caused by another person’s negligence, you may have the right to file a lawsuit to pursue compensation for any damages and injuries. A qualified attorney can review the details of your accident and injury and advise you on whether or not you have a valid personal injury claim.

A personal injury lawyer in York can investigate your accident and begin collecting evidence to help hold the at-fault parties liable for your injuries. We offer a free initial consultation to review your case and discuss the kinds of compensation available to you.

Complete a Free Case Evaluation form to get started.

Types of Personal Injury Cases

At Schmidt Kramer, our York personal injury attorneys have helped countless injury victims over the years. The types of personal injury cases we have handled include:

Car accidents
Medical malpractice
Construction accidents
Dog bites
Bicycle accidents
Defective products

Truck accidents
Nursing home abuse
Motorcycle accidents
Slip and falls
Wrongful death

If you think you may have a personal injury case, you should seek legal advice from an experienced attorney who understands exactly what you or a loved one are going through.

The personal injury lawyers in York are familiar with different types of personal injury cases and can help determine if you have a valid claim.

Our firm is ready to schedule your free consultation: (717) 888-8888

Contact a York Personal Injury Attorney

If you or someone you love suffered an injury caused by someone else’s negligent or reckless actions, you have legal rights. Contact one of our knowledgeable personal injury attorneys in York to review your case and determine if you have a valid claim. We are dedicated to defending your best interests and fighting to obtain the compensation you are entitled.

At Schmidt Kramer, we have decades of experience helping personal injury victims like yourself and will aggressively pursue all options available to recover compensation for any economic and emotional damages suffered.

Our lawyers work on a contingency fee basis which means no upfront costs or fees unless we help you recover favorable compensation.

Free Consultation. Ph: (717) 888-8888.

Free Case Review

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Testimonials

Greg W
Badreddine Saadoune
Michael Kosik was great, I couldn't have asked for a better lawyer. He worked to make sure my medical bills were adjusted appropriately to state law (since I was a victim) and worked hard to make sure I got an appropriate settlement. He is a very kind and understanding person who took the time to explain everything to me in great detail.
Darryl
Jessica Mitchell is lovely, she took care everything in a wonderful way. Definitely I would recommend her.
Mogart Febres
Abbie Trone!! I love her!! She’s amazing! She made everything easy. She was very nice to me! She took very care of my case & If need be i will use her again!!
Desiree Cannon

Recent Results

$10,043,952.13 Personal Injury
Schmidt Kramer, P.C.partner Gerard C. Kramer won a personal injury action for $10,043,952.13 in Northumberland County on behalf of a volunteer firefighter who was the victim of Intentional Tort. The 50-year-old volunteer firefighter was seriously injured when a barn collapsed, causing a spinal injury which left him a paraplegic. The claim was brought against the arsonist who intentionally started the fire. It is believed that the verdict is the highest ever in Northumberland County.
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$4,034,000.00 Personal Injury
Yesterday a Judge in Union County (Lewisburg, PA) awarded a couple from New Berlin, Pennsylvania, over $4,000,000 because the husband was shot while turkey hunting.You might ask yourself, how does a turkey hunting accident end up with that type of verdict? In order to understand the verdict you would have to know our clients. They are good people who had their life wrecked. Plus, you would have to know the defendant, who should not have been hunting with a gun because he was prohibited after a previous criminal conviction.It is a good verdict, because the Judge was able to do two things with his decision. First, he communicated to two very good people that their losses were something that those of us on the outside could appreciate and value. Mike Hobbins (our client) is a 51 year old guy who lost his sight because a convicted felon --who should not have even possessed a gun-- went hunting illegally, and broke with impunity the most fundamental rule in hunting: identify your target before you pull the trigger. The Judge accepted the financial loss Mr. Hobbins' suffered, but listened closely to the evidence of less tangible losses. When Mike broke down on the stand, because his daughter would end up walking him down the aisle at her wedding, as opposed to how it was supposed to go, the Judge was listening. When Mike could not keep it together, because of how emasculating it was for him not to be able to provide financially for his family, the Judge was listening. It was facts like these that the Judge cited to support the $2,000,000 award for non-economic damages. Second, the Judge wanted to send a message. Union County is a hunting county. Many of the residents hunt there, and people from outside the area come to Union County to hunt. It was my impression, from the Judge's statements as he rendered his decision, that he wanted to send a message to the people in Union County to protect them in their sport. The rules in place to restrict people convicted of crimes not to have a gun are not to be broken. Hunting is serious and you have to identify your target before you shoot. When you turn your back on the rules that are set to provide safety in a sport, you risk being an example. Here, the $1,000,000 punitive damage award sends that message loud and clear.When it really comes down to brass tacks, the right action was taken against a Defendant who may never truly appreciate what kind of impact his reckless choices caused.At Schmidt Kramer, we are injury lawyers. That means we work with people who were hurt in car accidents, who were hurt by the neglect of nursing homes, or those that were seriously injured because of the reckless, thoughtless acts of others. If you or a loved one have been injured in Pennsylvania, we may be able to help. While the verdict yesterday is not one that is representative of every case we do, it does show that serious and dedicated representation can bring good results.Joe ChapmanJanuary 18, 2013
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$2,200,000.00 Auto Accidents
On Monday, January 6, 2014, Schmidt Kramer accident lawyer Scott Cooper obtained a verdict on behalf of his client who is the widow of a man who died in a fiery crash on Interstate 78 in Lebanon County. The awarded verdict of $2.2 million was in a nonjury proceeding before a federal judge in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. That verdict includes $100,000 in punitive damages assessed against the owner of the trucking company.Kamilah Claxton won summary judgment in November after the defendants, Sukhwinder Singh and the trucking company for which he worked, failed to file a brief in opposition to Claxton's motion, which was made in September. The verdict in Claxton v. Singh was issued after the court held a non-jury assessment of damages earlier this month."Mr. Sukhchan Singh, the employer, is liable on the basis of respondent superior, but was also grossly negligent in failing to maintain his vehicle in compliance with state and federal law, particularly with regard to having required safety inspections and correcting defects in its braking equipment," said U.S. District Judge William W. Caldwell of the Middle District of Pennsylvania in his opinion accompanying the verdict."He was also grossly negligent in entrusting his vehicle to Sukhwinder Singh, an inexperienced truck driver who had failed the written test and driving test multiple times before finally earning his commercial driving license," Caldwell said.
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$1,200,000.00 Personal Injury
A Dauphin County jury has awarded a $1.2 million verdict to the parents of a 5-year-old who had an anoxic brain injury and stopped breathing after he had a tonsillectomy.2012-06-26 10:00:00 AMDate of Verdict: June 19. 2012Court and Case No.: C.P. Dauphin County No. 2009-CV-14003-MMJudge: Scott EvansType of Action: Medical malpracticeInjuries: Anoxic brain injuryPlaintiffs Counsel: Terry S. Hyman, Schmidt Kramer, HarrisburgPlaintiffs Experts: Dr. Anna H. Messner, liability; Lucille Packer, Pediatric Otolaryngology, Palo Alto, Calif.; Terry P. Leslie, vocations and earning capacity, Lancaster; Dr. Hilary B. Berlin, pediatric psychiatry, Great Neck, N.Y.Defense Counsel: Andrew H. Foulkrod, Darlene K. King, Foulkrod Ellis, Camp Hill, PADefense Experts: James C. Reilly, Pediatric Otolaryngology, Wilmington, DEComment: A Dauphin County jury has awarded a $1.2 million verdict to the parents of a 5-year-old who had an anoxic brain injury and stopped breathing after he had a tonsillectomy.The entire verdict came against Dr. Andrew M. Shapiro, the doctor who plaintiffs Reginald Graham and Tykeisha Metz alleged chose to have the boy monitored at a pediatric ward. The plaintiffs argued Shapiro failed to tell nurses caring for the baby about, and how to care for, the boy's enhanced risk for respiratory failure.The jury came back on June 19 and awarded Reginald Graham and Tykeisha Mets $500,000 in non-economic damages and $686,170 in loss of future earning capacity, according to the plaintiffs counsel.According to the statement, the baby's mother brought him to Shapiro because she was "'afraid that he might stop breathing during his sleep,'" the plaintiffs' pretrial statement said. Shapiro performed a sleep study and observed the baby's Apnea Hypopnea Index to be 43 — four times higher than what's considered severe. A tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy were performed.According to the plaintiffs, the baby's sleep study results put him at an increased risk for post-operative respiratory complications. Despite this, they argued in the statement, Shapiro ordered the pediatric nurses at the Harrisburg Hospital general pediatric ward to observe the boy as they would any other patients — about once every four hours.The pretrial statement said that one in four children who have an AHI in the 40s and oxygen desaturation below 80 have some type of respiratory problem. The younger the child, the greater the risk of a respiratory problem, the statement said.According to the statement, Shapiro took off the child's pulse oximeter, the finger-mounted device used to measure blood oxygen, and ordered a heart and respiratory rate monitor. The child was 11 months old at the time.The plaintiffs pled that the baby was last seen at 4 a.m. There was no record of his oxygen saturation for the next hour and 45 minutes. He stopped breathing a 6:40 a.m., and his brain was without oxygen long enough to cause demonstrable injury on an MRI."Immediately prior to his surgery, [the child] was a normal child, who could say mama, eat finger foods, and was just on the verge of walking," the statement said. "After his code, [he] was like a newborn. He could not lift his head or sit up. He could not talk. He could not move."In his pretrial statement, Shapiro argued that he recognized the child's pre-operative sleep study showed he was driven to breath by decreased blood oxygen saturation, which he said was typical in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.He argued the American Academy of Otolaryngology dictates that admission to the intensive care unit is not the standard of care. In the statement, he said nurses did not observe signs of respiratory distress. No alarms sounded until the child arrested, the statement said.He said the baby likely arrested as a result of hypoglycemia and/or an acute aspiration, which he argued would not have been identified by blood oxygen saturation.— Ben Present, of the Law Weekly
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$1,024,040.80 Auto Accidents
Scott Cooper settled a wrongful death case on behalf of the widow of a police office who was killed in a car accident in the line of duty for $1,024,040.80. The claim against the other driver was amicably resolved before suit was filed for the entire available policy limits for the other driver. The case took place in Adams County, PA.
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York Personal Injury Lawyers