In stormy conditions, debris often flies around everywhere and your car could be hit by anything from tree branches to manmade structures like sheets of iron or tiles off a roof. Storm damage cannot really be blamed on anyone apart from, perhaps, Mother Nature. It is different if your car is hit by fallen debris from a building or other structure due to poor maintenance or design.
A heavy object could cause you to crash your car or even penetrate through the windshield or another window and cause serious injuries. If this is what has happened to you, you should talk to a personal injury lawyer about the possibility of filing a personal injury claim against the property owner.
Injuries That Can Occur if Fallen Debris Damaged Your Car
The damage done by falling debris depends entirely on what it is that falls on your car. A brick, masonry or piece of metal could easily penetrate through glass and cause severe lacerations and/or head injuries.
It could also momentarily distract you or cause you to lose control of the vehicle and crash into something solid. Injuries could include broken bones, spinal injury, internal organ damage, as well as lacerations and head injuries.
You are likely to need urgent hospital treatment and may be off work for a few weeks or even months. In the meantime you will want to know whether anyone was to blame, an individual property owner, a business, or government entity that was negligent in maintaining their property.
Filing a PI Claim For Injuries After Fallen Debris Damaged Your Car
If you discover that the fallen debris was not a natural event, but came from a man made structure that had been negligently maintained, you may have grounds to file a claim for damages. This would include the loss of earnings for the period you have to stay away from work because of your injuries.
You will need evidence that the property owner was liable. This isn’t easy, as it does require a bit of research. You will need evidence that something hard and heavy fell on top of your car and that this came from a particular location. You will need to prove that the debris, whatever it was, shouldn’t have fallen off if the building or structure had been properly looked after.
Evidence in the form of eye witness statements, photos that you may be able to take yourself, the debris and the police report made about the incident, will all be useful when submitting your claim. You will also obviously need to find out who the owner of the property was and whether they had liability insurance. If a government entity was involved and you can prove negligence, you will need to set the ball rolling quite quickly as time limits for claims against government entities tend to be short.
Working with a PI Lawyer
It will be hard proving negligence in the event of an injury from fallen debris without legal help. A PI lawyer can do the necessary research to find out whether someone was liable for the accident and you will find you have a better chance overall of obtaining compensation with the help of a lawyer.
