Mountain View Personal Injury

Accident Attorneys Representing Victims in the Mountain View Area

If you are injured in an accident caused by someone else, you may be able to recover compensation for your harm. Unfortunately, accidents can happen in virtually any area of life. You may be shopping at a supermarket when you suffer a slip and fall, you may be a pedestrian in a marked crosswalk or a bicyclist in a marked bike lane, you may be commuting to work when a distracted driver strikes you, you may be hit by an uninsured driver, or you may be walking and bitten by a dog. Determining who was at fault for an accident and who is responsible for paying compensation to you may be a complicated matter. This is why it is important to talk to a knowledgeable Mountain View personal injury lawyer as soon as possible after an accident. At Ziff & Cohn, we understand the nuances of these claims and can advise you on the full scope of your legal options.

Basics of a Personal Injury Claim

The theory of “negligence” lies at the core of most personal injury cases, such as those arising from car accidents. Negligence means that someone owed a duty to another person, and they breached that duty. If that breach results in injuries, the person or entity that was negligent can be held responsible. For example, drivers have an obligation to drive carefully and avoid creating unreasonable risks for other people. If someone is reading a text message and then rear-ends someone on Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View, for example, they probably would be liable for the victim’s injuries. Or if someone is driving drunk down the Rengstorff Avenue on-ramp to Highway 101, they might fail to yield and slam into someone who was traveling down the freeway. This is also a situation in which a personal injury attorney in the Mountain View area likely can establish the elements of a negligence claim.

The Mountain View Police Department has reported that certain intersections in Mountain View tend to be more dangerous than others. The most dangerous intersection in 2018 was the intersection of El Camino Real with Highway 237 to the north and Grant Road to the south. Other intersections on El Camino Real also rank among the most dangerous in the city, such as the intersection with Sylvan Avenue. West Middlefield Road also has been the site of many crashes, especially at its intersections with Highway 237 and Shoreline Boulevard.

Distinctive Issues in Premises Liability Cases

Premises liability is a legal theory under which a property owner can be held liable for a hazard on their property. A slip and fall or a dog bite is a common example of a premises liability case. The same concepts of negligence apply as in a car accident or other personal injury case, but the type of duty that a property owner owes someone who is on the property depends on many different factors, such as the reason why the person was on the property. A court can also look at whether any kinds of warnings were posted and whether the defects were open and obvious or hidden. The accident also must have been a foreseeable result of the property owner’s carelessness.

Pursuing a Manufacturer in a Product Liability Claim

Product liability is another kind of claim that our Mountain View personal injury attorneys can pursue on a victim’s behalf. There are three different bases for product liability: defective designs, manufacturing defects, and failures to warn. A defective design means that the way that the product was designed created an unreasonable risk of danger. By contrast, with a manufacturing defect, the product as designed is fine, but at least one of the products came off the production line with something wrong with it. Finally, a failure to warn means that with appropriate warnings and instructions, the consumer would be reasonably safe, but there is a piece of information missing that makes the use of the product unreasonably dangerous.

Seek Guidance and Advocacy for Your Personal Injury Claim

There are many other types of accident cases as well, and our personal injury lawyers can guide you through the nuances of your specific situation. At Ziff & Cohn, we are ready to aggressively advocate for all of the compensation that you need to move forward physically, emotionally, and financially from the harm that you have suffered. We handle our cases on a contingency basis, so we do not get paid unless we recover money for you. Call (650) 329-0851 or use the contact form on our website to schedule a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer in Mountain View.