Lafayette Personal Injury Lawyer

Are you looking for a personal injury lawyer in Lafayette, IN?

At Ward & Ward Personal Injury Lawyers, we are trusted personal injury lawyers serving clients across Lafayette and the surrounding area.

If a crash on I-65, a fall in a Lafayette store, or an error at a hospital left you injured, the person or company responsible has an insurer whose job is to pay you as little as possible. Your medical bills do not wait for a settlement. Our Lafayette, IN personal injury lawyer has represented injured people since 1954. Contact our office for a free consultation about your injury.

Personal Injury Lawyer Lafayette, IN

A personal injury lawyer represents a person who was hurt by someone else’s carelessness and seeks payment for the resulting losses. The lawyer gathers the proof of what happened, calculates the medical costs, lost income, and other harm, and negotiates with the responsible party’s insurer or tries the case before a jury.

In 2022, 11,650 people were involved in traffic collisions in Tippecanoe County, the seventh-highest total among Indiana’s 92 counties, and 1,346 of them were injured, according to Indiana Crash Facts from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute. Those crashes are the largest source of injury claims that a personal injury attorney in Lafayette handles, followed by falls on commercial property, dog bites, and medical errors.

Types of Personal Injury Cases We Handle in Lafayette

Our Lafayette personal injury attorneys accept cases in which another person’s or company’s negligence caused the injury. We represent injured people only, never insurance companies.

• Car accidents. Collisions on US 52, I-65, and the city’s arterial streets produce the largest number of claims we see from Lafayette. We establish fault, identify every applicable insurance policy, and document the injuries before the insurer sets its reserve.
• Truck accidents. A tractor-trailer crash involves a driver, a carrier, and sometimes a shipper, each with separate insurance. We send preservation letters for the truck’s electronic data and the driver’s logs within days of the crash.
• Motorcycle accidents. A rider’s injuries are usually severe, and an adjuster often argues that the rider was speeding or hard to see. We obtain the physical evidence that answers that argument.
• Pedestrian accidents. A person hit by a car in a crosswalk or along a shoulder has a claim against the driver and, when the driver is uninsured, against the pedestrian’s own auto policy.
• Bicycle accidents. Drivers who turn across a bike lane or open a door into a cyclist are responsible for the injuries that follow. We handle claims for cyclists in Lafayette and around the Purdue campus.
• Slip and fall injuries. A store, restaurant, apartment complex, or parking lot owner must repair or warn of hazards it knew about or should have found. We obtain the incident report, surveillance video, and maintenance records.
• Dog bites. Indiana holds an owner responsible for a bite when the owner knew the dog was dangerous or failed to control it. The owner’s homeowners or renters policy usually pays the dog bite claim.
• Medical malpractice. A missed diagnosis, surgical error, or medication mistake at a Lafayette hospital or clinic is reviewed by a medical panel before it reaches a courtroom. We retain the physicians who evaluate the care.
• Mesothelioma. Individuals diagnosed with mesothelioma as a result of working conditions or military service may pursue a claim for compensation.
• Wrongful death. When an injury is fatal, the personal representative of the estate brings the claim on behalf of the surviving spouse, children, or dependents.

Why Choose Ward & Ward Personal Injury Lawyers as my Personal Injury Lawyer in Lafayette, IN?

A Legendary Lawyer Award and an Indiana Supreme Court Clerkship

Donald W. Ward received the Legendary Lawyer Award from the Indiana Bar Foundation in 2015, an honor reserved for attorneys with at least 50 years of practice. He has served as President of the Indiana Trial Lawyers Association and has been a member of the American Association for Justice since 1958. Charles P. Ward clerked for Justice Richard M. Givan of the Indiana Supreme Court from 1990 to 1991 after earning his law degree from Indiana University and his bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Butler University. Both attorneys hold the AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the highest peer rating that service awards.

Our firm has helped injured clients recover millions of dollars.

Contingency Fees and Our Attorneys’ Cell Phone Numbers

We charge no attorney fee unless we recover compensation for you. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, and the first consultation is free.

Every client receives the cell phone numbers of our attorneys, and our clients reach the attorney directly when a question comes up. We represent clients in Lafayette, West Lafayette, and the rest of Tippecanoe County from our Indianapolis office, about an hour south on I-65.

What Is Important To Understand About Personal Injury Cases?

Damages, Liability, and Compensation for Personal Injury Cases

Liability rests on negligence, which has four parts. The defendant owed you a duty of care, breached that duty, caused your injury, and left you with measurable losses. A driver who runs a stop sign, a store that ignores a spill, and a surgeon who operates on the wrong site have each breached a duty.

Indiana reduces a verdict by the injured person’s own share of fault, and a person who is more than 50 percent at fault recovers nothing under Indiana Code 34-51-2-6. Insurers know this rule well. Their first move in many claims is to assign enough blame to the injured person to reduce or eliminate the payout.

Compensation covers medical expenses, lost wages, reduced earning capacity, and pain and suffering. Most injury claims in Indiana carry no cap on those damages. Two exceptions matter in Lafayette cases. A medical malpractice recovery is limited to $1.8 million for care provided after June 30, 2019, under Indiana Code 34-18-14-3, and a wrongful death claim for an unmarried adult without dependents limits damages for loss of love and companionship to $300,000 under Indiana Code 34-23-1-2. Punitive damages, available only for reckless or malicious conduct, are capped at three times the compensatory award or $50,000, whichever is greater, under Indiana Code 34-51-3-4.

What Should You Bring to Your Personal Injury Consultation?

A first meeting goes further when we can see the records rather than hear a description of them.

1. The crash report, incident report, or the name of the agency or business that prepared one identifies the parties and the date.
2. Photographs of the scene, the hazard, the vehicles, and your injuries show conditions that may have changed since.
3. Your medical records and bills to date, or the names of the providers who treated you, establish the diagnosis and the cost.
4. Your health and auto insurance cards tell us which policies may pay bills now and which may claim reimbursement later.
5. Letters, emails, and voicemails from any insurer show what the adjuster has already asked for or offered.

The consultation is free and private. A Lafayette personal injury lawyer at our firm will tell you whether the facts support a claim and what the claim is likely to involve.

What Is The Personal Injury Case Timeline?

A personal injury claim follows a sequence that depends more on your medical recovery than on the court’s schedule.

• The investigation begins immediately, with witness interviews, photographs, and letters requiring the preservation of video and electronic evidence.
• Treatment continues until your physicians say you have recovered or have reached the point where further improvement is unlikely.
• The demand package goes to the insurer once the full extent of the losses is documented, and negotiation follows.
• A lawsuit is filed in the Tippecanoe Circuit or Superior Court when the insurer’s offer does not match the value of the claim, and it must be filed within two years of the injury under Indiana Code 34-11-2-4.
• Discovery, mediation, and, in a minority of cases, trial complete the process over the following year or more.

A claim against a city, county, or state agency requires a written notice within a much shorter period after the injury, so the statute of limitations is not the only deadline that matters.

What Are Important Aspects of a Personal Injury Case?

Evidence decides injury claims, and much of it disappears within weeks. Store surveillance systems overwrite footage, vehicles are repaired or sold, and witnesses move or forget. The timeline of a case is shaped by what was preserved in the first month.

Three habits protect a claim while it is pending.

1. Decline the recorded statement that the other side’s adjuster requests, because the questions are designed to produce an admission that reduces the claim.
2. Follow your treatment plan and keep every appointment, because a gap in care is the most common reason an insurer disputes the connection between the incident and the injury.
3. Stay off social media, since adjusters and defense attorneys gather evidence from posts and photographs to argue that the injuries are less serious than claimed.

A person with a prior injury or medical condition still recovers compensation for the harm the defendant caused. Indiana follows the eggshell skull rule, which holds a defendant responsible for the full extent of an injury even when a healthier person would have been hurt less.

Most Dangerous Locations for Personal Injury Accidents in Lafayette

Tippecanoe County had one of the highest collision rates per mile traveled in Indiana in 2022 and the third-highest share of speed-related crashes, according to the same Indiana Crash Facts report. The intersection of South Street and Creasy Lane has recorded more crashes than any other intersection in the county according to the county’s crash data, and rear-end collisions make up most of them.

• Injury lawsuits are filed in the Tippecanoe County courts at the county courthouse, 301 Main Street, Lafayette, which houses the Circuit Court and seven Superior Courts.
• The Indiana State Police Lafayette District on State Road 43 North investigates crashes on I-65 and the state highways, and its crash reports are available online for a small fee.
• IU Health Arnett Hospital on McCarty Lane and Franciscan Health Lafayette on South Creasy Lane treat most serious injuries in the county, and their records are the first documents we request.

Reach Out to Ward & Ward Personal Injury Lawyers to Schedule a Consultation

A personal injury attorney in Lafayette, IN can review what happened, explain which insurer owes you, and tell you what your claim is worth. There is no fee unless we recover compensation, and the consultation costs nothing. Contact us to schedule a meeting. Our phones are answered 24 hours a day, and an attorney returns calls promptly.