Massachusetts Personal Injury and Real Estate Attorneys Serving Quincy, Dorchester, and Greater Boston

Personal Injury

In order to recover damages arising out of injuries, you’ll usually need to establish another’s negligence. This means you’ll need to prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) the defendant owed you a duty to use reasonable care, (2) failed to meet that duty, (3) thereby causing your injuries, and (4) you suffered damages. The circumstances will determine what the duty of care was and how it was breached in your situation. In personal injury lawsuits, Massachusetts follows the rule of modified comparative negligence. This means the jury will look at the facts to determine whether you were also at fault for your injuries, and your damages will be reduced by an amount equal to your percentage of fault. You’ll be barred from recovering damages if you are found 51% or more at fault.

Car Accidents

Massachusetts is a no-fault state. This means that after a car accident you’ll need to turn to your personal injury protection (PIP) coverage before filing a lawsuit against an at-fault party for damages. PIP coverage is mandatory and it will include benefits for a percentage of certain economic losses such as medical bills. You can only go beyond your PIP coverage if your injuries rise to a certain threshold of seriousness or expense. Our personal injury lawyers in Quincy may be able to hold at-fault drivers responsible for your injuries under a theory of negligence when they cause a car crash due to their speeding, tailgating, weaving, drunk driving, distracted driving, or failure to obey traffic signs and signals.

Premises Liability

When you visit a store, restaurant, or other property, you don’t expect to suffer injuries. Property owners must keep their premises reasonably safe for visitors. In order to recover damages in a premises liability lawsuit, you’ll need to show that you were injured as a result of a dangerous property condition about which the property owner knew or should have known. You may be able to show that a property owner should have known about a dangerous condition if it existed for long enough that a reasonable property owner would have become aware of it. Dangerous property conditions can include spills, slippery surfaces, cracked surfaces, rippling carpet, broken steps, loose handrails, rotted beams, defective swimming pools, and defective escalators.

Medical Malpractice

You trust that your doctor or other health care provider will abide by a professional standard of care when diagnosing and treating your symptoms. Unfortunately, health care providers may make errors that can result in serious injuries or fatalities. Our personal injury attorneys represent patients in Quincy. In order to establish that you’re entitled to recover for medical malpractice, we’ll need to prove that your provider failed to abide by her professional standard of care given the circumstances, and as a result, you sustained injuries. In most cases, we’ll need to retain experts to provide their opinions about what professional duty was owed, departure from the professional duty of care, and causation. In most cases, employers such as hospitals can be held accountable for staff actions that constitute malpractice. However, doctors are usually not hospital employees. Under M.G.L c. 231, § 60H, your damages for pain and suffering, embarrassment, loss of companionship or other similar items will be capped at $500,000 unless the jury decides you’ve sustained substantial disfigurement or permanent impairment of a bodily function, or that there’s a special circumstance such that the restriction would deprive you of just compensation.

Nursing Home Negligence

You trust that a nursing home that agrees to care for your loved one will provide her with adequate medical treatment, hydration, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, and safeguards against accidents. Unfortunately, nursing home negligence is common. Sometimes it’s the result of understaffing or improper training, but in other cases, it’s more malicious. Signs of nursing home negligence and abuse include pressure sores, unexplained bruises or broken bones, personality changes, infections, rapid weight changes, seemingly inexplicable infections, and withdrawal. Our personal injury attorneys represent Quincy clients in lawsuits against staff members or nursing homes that failed to use reasonable care to protect residents from injuries or death or abused them.

Wrongful Death

Under Massachusetts law, a person or entity can be held accountable when his negligence, wantonness, or recklessness causes someone else’s death. The administrator or executor of the decedent is permitted to sue for wrongful death in court. For instance, if your spouse is a motorcyclist who was T-boned by a driver in a left-turn accident when he had the right-of-way at an intersection, and you are the administrator of his estate, you may be able to sue for wrongful death. A wrongful death lawsuit is distinct and separate from a criminal prosecution that may be pursued for homicide. While prosecutors must establish crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, we’ll need to establish wrongful death claims by a preponderance of the evidence, a lower standard.

Real Estate Law

We handle residential and commercial real estate closings. Under Massachusetts law, you must have an attorney preside over your residential property closing to make sure certain steps are taken for the protection of buyer and seller. These include examining title, coordinating issuance of title insurance, preparation and delivery of documents, and coordination of paying the appropriate parties. Commercial real estate purchase and sale involves properties such as retail spaces, offices, apartments, mixed use spaces, condominiums, and professional spaces. These transactions require careful attention to drafting and reviewing of detailed agreements and documents. There may be multiple parties to a commercial transaction besides the buyer, seller, and lender, including investors, local governments, contractors, appraisers, and conservation agencies.

Property Damage Claims

Our firm handles property damage claims in addition to personal injury claims. When you purchase an insurance policy, you enter into a contract with an insurance company to cover your losses in case of certain events such as a fire, disaster or accident. The insurer must abide by the terms of the contract when determining whether your claim is covered. It owes a duty of good faith and fair dealing to its insured. However, insurance contracts are complicated, and it may be difficult for you to figure out whether your property loss is covered and whether an insurer is behaving fairly towards you. In Massachusetts, bad faith damages may be pursued if an insurer engages in bad faith practices such as failing to investigate the claim, misrepresenting policy provisions and exclusions, failing to advise in a timely fashion whether there is coverage, or denying a claim when there’s no factual support for the denial.

Retain an Experienced South Shore Attorney

If you’ve sustained serious injuries, it’s important to seek counsel. The seasoned Quincy personal injury attorneys of Brabant & Huynh may be able to represent you in a lawsuit for damages. We also represent those injured in accidents in Dorchester, Mattapan, Milton, Dedham, Canton, Stoughton, Randolph, Holbrook, Braintree, Weymouth, Hingham, Brockton, Bridgewater, Avon, Hanover, Abington, and Norwell. Complete our online form or call us for a free consultation at (617) 934-0913.