Complications Of A Toxic Tort Claim

If you have been injured by a chemical or a dangerous substance, you deserve to be compensated just like a car accident victim. It is just that toxic tort claims, which is the name given to such personal injury claims, has some potential complications that car accident cases may not have. Here are three major examples of these complications:

The Evidence Is Usually Stale By the Time the Case Is Filed

If you are injured in a car accident, your injuries or symptoms of injuries appear almost instantaneously. This means it is easy to connect the accident to your injuries. You can use the damage on the vehicle, the blood on your clothes or even videos or pictures of the accident to prove your injuries are connected to the accident. 

Most toxic substances don't cause immediate injuries or produce immediate symptoms. For example, it takes eight to forty years for symptoms of asbestos-related health conditions to start appearing. By that time most of the things that you could have used in your claim may already be gone. Maybe the house in which you were exposed to the asbestos has been demolished or the people who may have testified to its presence cannot be traced. This makes it difficult to prove toxic tort claims.

Identifying the Exact Cause of the Injury Isn't Easy

By the time you realize that you are suffering from a condition that might have been caused by a toxic substance, your body may have been exposed to numerous other toxic substances. For example, if you have been diagnosed with cancer, and you think it is due to your lead exposure, the defendant can easily argue that it is the food you have been eating or the cigarettes you have been smoking. The onus will be on you to link your cancer to the lead exposure, and that isn't easy. This is unfortunate because you need to identify the exact cause of your injury so that you can trace it back to its source and identify the right person to sue.

It Relies On Scientific Evidence, Which Changes a Lot

Because toxic injuries are complicated, the use of scientific evidence is the best way to prove or disapprove them. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It is an advantage in that you can use scientific tools to prove that you have been harmed by a dangerous substance and is a disadvantage in that science isn't static; it changes a lot based on new discoveries. For example, you may instigate a lawsuit because your claims are supported by scientific tools only for new evidence disapproving your claims to crop up before the case is over.

As you can see, only a qualified and experienced person should try litigating a toxic tort claim. Get such a lawyer to take your case to improve your odds of winning your case. Contact a firm, like Kiernan Personal Injury Attorneys PA, for more help.