The eye is an exquisite organ, as delicate as a flower while as powerful as a telescope. The eye isn’t just how we see. It is also how others see us, truly the window to the soul. Family and friends detect our mood and spirit simply with a glance into our eyes, reflecting so perfectly who we are and what we feel.
A Profound Loss
The eye’s extraordinary powers and qualities are why eye injuries are among the most frightening and debilitating of personal injuries. Injury to one’s eyes doesn’t just impair vision, when impaired vision or blindness is in itself an enormous loss. Injury to one’s eyes can also affect one’s balance and mobility, and ability to work, operate transportation, appliances, and equipment, and care for oneself and one’s children or other family members.
An eye injury can also disfigure one’s appearance, bringing with it a loss of confidence and self-esteem and an onset of isolation and depression. Eye injuries, and the blurred and double vision that can come with them, can also cause headaches, fatigue, and a loss of the will to live a free, full, and engaged life. In short, the expert personal injury lawyers at the Injury Law Center are well aware of the profound losses that eye injuries can bring. They also know how to prove those losses.
Mechanisms of Eye Injury
Eye injuries have several common causes. Blunt or sharp trauma from motor-vehicle accidents, workplace accidents, stairway and walkway falls, equipment operation, and recreational injuries are leading causes. Safety glasses can reduce even though not entirely prevent traumatic eye injury. But many eye injuries happen under ordinary circumstances where no one expects to wear safety glasses.
Eye injuries also occur because of material and liquid exposure to things like caustic powders, toxic oils and greases, and burning liquids. Unexpected explosions, ruptures, and splashes can cause permanent partial or full loss of eyesight. The mechanisms and means of eye injuries vary more than you might think. Even innocuous things like rubber bands, simple tools, and certain toys can cause serious eye injury and vision loss. The Injury Law Center’s expert personal-injury lawyers know how to identify and prove mechanisms of eye injury.
Important Recovery Rights
Fortunately, the liability laws of Illinois and other states permit financial recovery for eye injuries, especially when they involve the carelessness of another or an unreasonably dangerous and defective product. As state jury instructions make clear, Illinois, like other states, holds actors responsible for their negligent or careless actions when those actions cause personal injury, including eye injury. Illinois Code of Civil Procedure §5/2-1116 bars the injured person’s recovery if they were more than fifty percent at fault in certain cases. But otherwise, the court may hold a negligent defendant liable to the injured person for the defendant’s percentage of fault.
States similarly hold product manufacturers liable to pay for injuries that their defective products cause. Illinois, like other states, recognizes these theories of strict product liability. While the liability theories and tests vary, a product is generally defective when its risk outweighs its utility or when it does not meet a reasonable consumer’s safety expectations. Illinois law may also look at whether the product’s manufacturer could have supplied a safer substitute product, eliminated the danger, or warned the user of the risk. The skilled personal injury lawyers at the Injury Law Center know how to evaluate and prove both negligence and strict product liability claims.
Insurers Likely to Cover Loss
People suffering a disabling eye injury generally look first to health insurance for reimbursement of the cost of medical care and then to disability insurers for wage loss. Health insurance, for the many who have it, and disability insurance, for the fewer who have it, can provide a reasonable safety net. If the eye injury occurs in the course and because of work, then worker’s compensation insurance may alternatively pay for medical expenses and some work loss. These insurances, though, do not nearly cover an eye injury’s full loss. They pay nothing for the pain, suffering, disfigurement, or lost enjoyment of life that can dwarf insured losses.
That’s where liability insurance comes to the rescue. Homeowner’s insurance, commercial general liability insurance, and other common insurance policies often include liability coverage that would, of course, extend to eye injuries. One doesn’t necessarily need to locate liability coverage to make a financial recovery. Liability laws hold the careless actor financially responsible, not just liability insurers. But liability insurers are in the business of paying claims. Liability insurance makes a financial recovery far more likely.
Expert Personal-Injury Lawyers for Eye Injury Claims
If you or someone you love has suffered an eye injury or other serious injury due to the careless actions or omissions of others or from a defective product, then don’t ignore or rest on your liability claim. Liability claims have strict time limits. The Injury Law Center at the Cullotta Bravo Law Group has expert personal injury attorneys to maximize your liability claim while timely protecting your legal rights. Call the Injury Law Center now at 630-898-7800, contact the Injury Law Center online, or schedule a visit to the Injury Law Center’s Aurora or Chicago offices.