Our Experience

Personal injury litigation has always represented a significant portion of our caseload. More than half of our cumulative firm jury trial experience involves some form of personal injury claim, including these areas:

• Assault and battery claims
• Automobile accident claims between motorists
• Uninsured and underinsured motorist claims, including arbitrations and trials
• Slip and fall litigation and premises liability claim
• Product liability claims
• Explosion and Fire cases

Our experience in personal injury claims has also provided us with extensive experience in relation to many different kinds of injuries and medical conditions that can be caused by trauma. These include, by way of example, the following:

• Health club injury claims
• Power saw claims
• Firearm injuries, including defective firearm claims
• Severe burn cases
• Reflex sympathetic dystrophy cases, including sympathetically maintained pain and complex regional pain syndrome claims
• Spinal injury claims
• Shoulder and rotator cuff injury claims
• Carpal tunnel injuries
• Temporomandibular jaw (TMJ) cases
• Fibromyalgia cases
• Closed head injury cases and mild, moderate and severe brain injury cases
• Post-concussive syndrome claims
• Ruptured diaphragm cases
• Fractures of arms, legs and other bones
• Internal injuries, including organ damage
• Femoropatellar injuries
• Pelvic fractures
• Occular injuries (eye damage cases)
• Tinnitus cases
• Nerve damage claims
• Severe infection cases
• Food poisoning cases

Mastery of the facts

We believe that the key to effective personal injury litigation, as in most areas of litigation, is to become extremely familiar with the medical issues in the case and to know all of the details of the lives of the injured persons, as well as the facts of the case, at the earliest possible stage in the litigation. Personal injury litigation is fact intensive, meaning that no two cases are exaclty alike and the factual details of the case determine the outcome. We have observed that many personal injury litigators on both sides of the bar often fail to really dig into the facts of the case, and therefore lose potential advantages in the case that could otherwise be had if the attorneys had been more diligent in obtaining the facts.

The key to success in litigation is to be realistic and careful in terms of how a "win" is defined under the circumstances of any given dispute. No two cases are exactly alike. Remember that no attorney or firm can guarantee success according to any arbitrary standard or in terms of a favorable result at trial. Whether or not to try a case or settle a case is a decision a client makes with the advise of an attorney, and no attorney can guarantee anything about the outcome of a civil case. Any case, tried to a jury or a court, might be resolved unfavorably. Trials are inherently unpredictable. Statements contained on this website regarding the ability of the professionals at Godfrey | Johnson, P.C., are based upon good faith perceptions of our abilities demonstrated over years of practice, and are not intended to imply that the attorneys have never lost a case or that we can assure that any particular case will be won at trial or on motions. The best way to evaluate any case is to communicate about it in depth with qualified legal counsel, providing all relevant information to the attorney. It is dangerous to withhold facts from an attorney, and can lead to the delivery of legal advise that is fundamentally flawed. No attorney can prevent this from happening, as attorneys all must rely to some extent upon the information that is provided to them by their clients. The best way to evaluate an attorney is by that attorney's track record, and ours is open for discussion in any specific field. Our abilities as described on this website are based upon experience in actual cases, which have been successful more often than not. ©2015 Godfrey | Johnson, P.C. All rights reserved.