Oklahoma City Personal Injury Attorneys

Fact checked by Clayton Hasbrook J.D. | Updated on September 5, 2020

If you’ve been seriously injured in an accident and someone else was to blame, our Oklahoma City personal injury lawyers can help you get the compensation you deserve.

In law, personal injury refers to any damage incurred to the body, emotions, or mind. If an injury is a result of negligence, you may be able to claim compensation to redress your loss. Damages cover your expenses and make up for the intangible costs of injury, pain, and psychological trauma.

How We Help You Get The Compensation You Deserve

oklahoma city personal injury lawyers
Here at Hasbrook & Hasbrook, we are here to help you get the compensation you deserve under the law. Our team specializes in torts or non-criminal damage done to you.

Here are some of the most common causes of personal injury in Oklahoma City we encounter in our practice:

Vehicle accidents, including car, motorcycle and truck accidents
Medical malpractice
Wrongful death cases
Slip and fall accidents
Dog bites
Defective products

Personal injury cases typically arise out of workplace accidents, automobile accidents, and premises liability. With us, you can make your case and get the compensation owed to you.

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How We Process Your Personal Injury Claim

Personal injury claims are not merely a money-making scheme designed to enrich people. Instead, they are an important societal and legal mechanism that deters behavior that could cause injury or death to others in the future. Furthermore, these proceedings are also vital for helping the victims of injury secure the financial resources they need to compensate for a loss of capacity, pain, or emotional hardship.

In Oklahoma, many personal injury claims go to court. Here, a jury, composed of members of the local community, determines whether you have a valid claim. Their job is to assess the facts and conclude whether a third party is culpable.

Hasbrook & Hasbrook has tremendous experience in such cases, helping to secure the compensation you deserve. We work to ensure that you receive a level of compensation in proportion to the harm you’ve suffered. The damages you receive may cover tangible economic costs such as your medical expenses, future lost wages and benefits (including life and health insurance if you cannot work), and care costs. Settlements may also cover non-economic costs of injury, including the pain and trauma caused by injuries, disfigurement, loss of earning potential, and physical condition before the event.

In some personal injury cases, you may also be able to receive punitive damages. These occur when the court decides that the wrongdoer acted recklessly or intentionally with malice towards you. Here, the defendant must pay additional sums to you on top of the compensatory economic and non-economic damages outlined above.

We make your case for you on your behalf, presenting the facts of your case. Our goal is to ensure that you receive compensation that provides adequate restitution for the damages you incurred.

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Personal Injury Statistics In Oklahoma City

Personal injury accidents in Oklahoma City are more common than you might think. Here, we present the latest available data for a variety of personal injury types.

Vehicle Accident Statistics

According to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office (OHSO), there were 195 crashes per day in Oklahoma in 2018, down slightly from the previous year. Statewide, there were 655 fatalities and more than 32,536 injuries sustained by occupants of vehicles and pedestrians. Large truck crashes accounted for 107 deaths in 2018 and 2,088 injuries across 5,846 crashes. And there were 89 motorcyclist fatalities and 970 injuries.

OHSO breaks down reporting by county, allowing us to construct fatality statistics for Oklahoma City specifically. The larger metro area covers Canadian, Cleveland, Grady, Kingfisher, Lincoln, Logan, McClain, Oklahoma, Payne and Pottawatomie counties. Therefore, we report the statistics for each county and sum them to get statistics for the entire metro area.

Here we report total injury crashes by county for 2018:

Canadian County: 620
Cleveland County: 1455
Grady County: 260
Kingfisher County: 100
Lincoln County: 148
Logan County: 141
McClain County: 226
Oklahoma County: 6119
Payne County: 401
Pottawatomie County: 389

In total, therefore, there were more than 9,859 crashes that resulted in injury in the Oklahoma City metro area, and more than 6,119 Oklahoma County – the most populous region.

According to OHSO data, the Stanley Draper Expressway, Geronimo Drive, and South Grand Boulevard were accident hotspots, seeing the highest concentrations of crashes that resulted in injury or death.

OHSO also reports the number of truck accidents reported across the state and in the counties that encompass the Oklahoma City metro area.

Statistics show that there were nine deaths involving truck accidents in Oklahoma County in 2018 and 25 incapacitating injuries, according to reports compiled by police and traffic patrol offices on the scene. There were a further 96 non-incapacitating injuries and a further 261 possible injuries.

Across the whole of the metro area, there were 38 deaths, according to police reports and a total of 70 incapacitating injuries.

Across the entire country, more than 4,136 people died in large truck accidents in 2019. Thirty-three percent of fatalities occurred on interstates and freeways. Fifty-two percent occurred on other major roads. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration reports 116,000 injury truck accidents in 2017, up from just 60,000 in 2009.

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Medical Malpractice Statistics

Data suggest that medical malpractice may now be the third leading cause of death in the US, just behind heart disease and malignant neoplasm (cancer), although researchers dispute this. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that the number of iatrogenic (physician-caused) deaths may be as high as 250,000, with official estimates hovering around 106,000. A further study by Healthgrades found that in 2002, 195,000 hospital deaths per year were attributable to avoidable medical errors.

Wrongful Death Statistics

Wrongful death occurs when a person accidentally loses their life because of the negligence or recklessness of a third-party.

Here at Hasbrook & Hasbrook, we’ve conducted extensive research into potential sources of wrongful deaths in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma State, and the US.

According to the Centers For Disease Control, there were 169,936 unintentional injury deaths in the US in 2016, implying a death rate of 52.2 per 100,000 citizens. Accidental fall deaths accounted for 36,338 of that figure, and motor vehicle deaths a further 40,231. And unintentional poisoning deaths accounted for the vast majority of the remainder – a total of 64,795.

Oklahoma State Department for Health (OSDH) provides data on statewide deaths related to unintentional accidents. It breaks figures down into a series of categories and subcategories. Data show that 77 people died in Oklahoma in 2018 because of smoke, fire, or flame exposure. A further 74 died because of drowning or submersion, and 751 were killed in transport accidents. In total, there were 2,612 unintentional deaths statewide.

Counting up all the unintentional deaths in counties comprising the Oklahoma City metro area, Hasbrook & Hasbrook found that 741 deaths resulted from accidental injury.

The OSDH reports 406 accidental deaths in Oklahoma County in 2018.

Statistics about Slip And Fall Accidents

Slip and fall accidents are a significant source of disability and death, both in Oklahoma City and the US as a whole.

Data indicate that slip and fall accidents were responsible for more than 731 deaths across all Oklahoma counties, and more than 350 in the Oklahoma City metro area in 2018.

Slip and fall accidents can occur anywhere, including on the sidewalk. However, they are particularly problematic in the workplace.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) collects detailed data on the prevalence of fatal and non-fatal slip and fall accidents that happen at work in Oklahoma. Figures indicate that there were 3.8 injury cases per 100 full-time workers per year statewide in 2012 – the last year for which industry- and state-specific data are available for Oklahoma.

National BLS data reveal that there were more than 240,160 workplace-related slips, trips, and falls in 2018. Thirty-three percent of these resulted in sprains, strains, or tears of ligaments, tendons, and muscles. A further 17.8 percent caused fractures to the bone. Falls “to a lower level” resulted in the highest proportion of bone injuries compared to other types of slips and falls.

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Dog Bites Statistics

Dog bites are a significant driver of personal injury claims in Oklahoma City. Data from the OSDH reveals that more than 4.7 million people may be the victims of canine attacks every year, with more than 60 percent of these being children. Estimates also suggest that a dog has bitten more than half of all children under the age of 12.

When it comes to dog bites, Oklahoma operates statutory strict liability. The owner of the dog is always responsible for the consequences of its actions, regardless of prior behavior.

Pitbulls are the most dangerous breed of dog, responsible for around 55 percent of all attacks. The famed rottweilers and their mixes are responsible for a further 14 percent, and wolf hybrids for about 1 percent, due to their rarity.

Statistics about Defective Products

In Oklahoma, you are able to claim damages caused by a defective product. Data from Kids in Danger report Seeking Safety: 2019 Children’s Product Recalls, more than 58 products were recalled in 2019, up from 52 in 2018, with an average of 13.8 reported incidences per product. A report from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission found an estimated 4,400 emergency room visits were associated with liquid laundry packet ingestion in 2018.

Our Oklahoma City Personal Injury Client Wins

Hasbrook & Hasbrook has won several cases with client compensation up to $1 million. We work to secure the best payouts and settlements for our clients, proportional to the damages they incur.

Auto Accident: $275,000 Compensation

Hasbrook & Hasbrook secured $275,000 in compensation for a teenage passenger involved in a car accident. The driver of the vehicle ran off the road, causing the client injuries that required surgery. Her mother spoke to an attorney about the possibility of making a personal injury claim. She was advised to accept the settlement of the minimum liability policy limits.

Later the mother called Hasbrook & Hasbrook to pursue the case further. We discovered that the father of the driver of the vehicle had uninsured motorist coverage on his business policy. This then allowed us to recover an additional $100,000.

Truck Accident: $825,000 Compensation

A school teacher was driving through an intersection in Oklahoma City. A truck driver failed to yield at a highway intersection. She was hit, causing what seemed like relatively minor injuries. Afterward, medical professionals discovered that she had a ruptured disc in her back and required surgery. We recovered more than $825,000 of damages.

Wrongful Death: $1,100,000

We recovered $1 million for this kind of case in Oklahoma City. A woman pulled into a restaurant parking lot, but pressed the accelerator instead of the brake, plowing into the restaurant wall. Her actions led to the death of a man inside. We recovered $1,100,000 in a settlement for a relation of the deceased.

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We’ve seen it all. Here are some other situations where we can help:

Child Injury (and Abuse)

Injuries are the leading cause of death for children under the age of 20 in the United States. Many of these injuries are the result of negligence or carelessness. If your child was severely injured or lost their life because of the irresponsible actions of another person or company, Hasbrook & Hasbrook can help you through this difficult time. We know what you are going through, and will fight on your behalf to obtain justice and compensation for your tragic loss.

Common Causes of Child Deaths and Injuries

Consider the following statistics: over 12,000 children die every year as a result of an accidental injury. That’s more than 1,000 children each and every month, or about 33 fatalities per day. Non-fatal injuries are even more prevalent: over nine million per year, according to CDC data. These numbers are simply unacceptable, especially when the death or injury was preventable and was caused by careless actions.

Transportation-related injuries kill more children than any other type of injury. Among transportation accidents, motor vehicle accidents like car accidents and truck accidents are the most prevalent. Other common causes of injuries and deaths among children include suffocation (for children under one year of age) and drowning (for children between one and four years of age). Falls, fires, pedestrian accidents, and bicycle accidents are also widespread.

The leading causes of death and injury among children in the United States vary across age groups, locations, and other factors. The CDC reports that in southern states like Oklahoma, fire- and burn-related deaths were more common than they were in other parts of the country. Among non-fatal injuries, insect stings and animal attacks were other widespread problems. Boys were generally more likely to be injured or killed than girls.

These types of accidents are seldom blameless or caused by a single factor. In many cases, numerous problems and mistakes come together in a way that permits a terrible tragedy to occur. If a child’s death or injury was caused by another person’s failure to take the normal and appropriate safety precautions for the situation, the guilty party may be liable for compensation.

We completely understand that no amount of compensation can undo the accident. However, compensation can help to cover your child’s medical bills, make up for the income you lost after taking time off from work, pay for care services you may have had to hire and keep your family a little more comfortable as you go through this challenging time together. Even more importantly, it can help grant parents and loved ones a sense of closure knowing that justice was served and the negligent party was held accountable for their inexcusable failures.

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Nursing Home Injury (and Abuse)

The state of Oklahoma is home to over a hundred nursing homes with thousands of residents. In and around Oklahoma, there are over thirty different options available to families who have made the tough decision of entrusting the care of their loved ones to a long-term facility. While most facilities take excellent care of their residents, there are others that do anything but. An astounding one in six elderly nursing home residents has experienced some type of abuse or neglect each year. Elderly abuse and neglect can sometimes be difficult to detect.

Types of Nursing Home Abuse

When people think of abuse, they commonly think of physical or emotional abuse. These types of abuses are common in everyday life and in nursing homes, as do sexual and financial abuse. However, there are other types of abuse that are more specific to nursing homes, such as neglect and chemical restraint.

Neglect occurs when the nursing home fails to ensure that its residents are well-fed, clean, do not get bedsores, or otherwise cared for to an appropriate degree given their condition. Chemical restraint involves improperly medicating a resident to make them more docile.

Common Injuries of Nursing Home Neglect

Bedsores, or pressure ulcers, are one of the most common injuries which result from neglect. Pressure ulcers are not a natural effect of aging, but on the contrary, are normally preventable with basic hygiene measures.

Bedsores tend to develop on the boniest areas of the body, such as the hips, ankles, and wrists. They may take weeks or months to develop, depending on the individual. In addition to being extremely painful, bedsores can also lead to serious medical complications, including:

Cancer – Chronic wounds that never heal, called Marjolin’s ulcers, can develop into an aggressive type of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma.

Cellulitis – Cellulitis is a bacterial skin infection capable of spreading rapidly and causing death.

Osteomyelitis – Osteomyelitis is a bone infection that typically requires surgical treatment to remove the infected bone.

Sepsis – Sepsis occurs when bacteria from open bedsore wounds pass into the bloodstream, potentially leading to organ failure and death.

Broken bones are also highly common. While it’s true that older adults are more susceptible to fractures due to factors like reduced bone density and difficulty balancing, that still doesn’t excuse or explain a preventable injury, especially since nursing homes are supposed to monitor residents who are known to have a high risk of falling. If you suspect anything untoward going on with your loved one, we can help you get to the bottom of it before any more maltreatment occurs. Call today to schedule a consultation and see how a compassionate attorney can help.

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Defective Products

Both federal and Oklahoma state laws hold companies responsible for ensuring that their products will not harm consumers. The Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) is the federal agency in charge of making sure products sold in the United States meet federal safety regulations. If a product does not meet these requirements, it must be recalled and kept off the market until the problem is fixed.

When a product does not work as intended, malfunctions, or otherwise creates a significant risk of harm to a person, it is considered a defective product, and anyone injured by it may be able to recover damages for their injuries. If a defective product causes harm to you, a defective product lawyer could help identify all possible sources of compensation that could help you pay for your recovery. Call a dedicated attorney today to schedule a consultation.

Laws and Liability for Defective Products

A manufacturer or seller of a product that is defective may be held legally liable for any foreseeable injuries stemming from the faulty product. In fact, any entity along the manufacturing chain could potentially be held liable for a defective product, from the manufacturer of component parts all the way to the owner of the retail store where the defective product was sold.

In Oklahoma, however, products liability law gives sellers more protection if they sold a defective product. Under Oklahoma Statutes §12-832.1, the manufacturer of a defective product must hold harmless a seller against any product liability action, unless the seller was negligent or intentionally modified or altered the product, in which they could be independently liable for any injuries stemming from the faulty product.

Elements of Products Liability

In order for an injured party to recover compensation in the case of a defective product, they must first establish that the defendant both manufactured and owned the commercial rights to sell the product in question. Once these two elements are established, the injured party must demonstrate three distinct circumstances that serve to establish liability:

1. The defective product was the actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries. In other words, the product’s defect must have been what caused the injury, and the injury must have been a foreseeable result of the defect

2. The injured party must prove the defect existed at the time it left the manufacturer’s possession, or that it existed at the time of sale or once it left the seller’s control

3. The defect made the product unreasonably dangerous

A seasoned defective product attorney could help the plaintiff assign liability. In Oklahoma, manufacturers are generally considered strictly liable for injuries sustained by consumers because of product defects. Essentially, this means that liability does not depend on whether the manufacturer was negligent or intended to do harm. They could be held liable to an injured party regardless of their intent or how much care they exercised.

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Accidental Drowning

Every year, more than 60 people across Oklahoma under the age of 15 drown. During the hot months of summer, it is always a treat to be able to hop into the pool and cool off. Parents enjoy taking their children to the local community pool and allowing their youngsters to splash around, however, swimming is not always safe, and unfortunately, can lead to drowning and death. More than three-fourths of drownings occur outdoors in natural bodies of water, including lakes, rivers, creeks, and ponds, and these numbers increase during the summer.

Who is Liable in a Drowning Accident?

Trying to determine who is liable when there has been a drowning is not always an easy thing. The answer depends on where and how they were injured. For a person to maintain a premises liability action they need to prove the following:

1. The defendant was in charge of the property
2. That the injured child was the type of person that the defendant could expect to be on the property
3. The defendant did not exercise the proper amount of care
4. The child was injured in a foreseeable way
5. The defendant’s carelessness was a major cause of the child’s injury.

However, children may also be injured by faulty pool drains, which can pin a child underwater. In those cases, you may be able to file a product liability claim against the company for knowingly building a drain without enough safeguards to protect children from getting stuck in it.

Boating Accidents

The dangers of driving on the highway sometimes pale in comparison to the dangers faced by boaters. Many boat drivers choose to disobey rules and consume alcohol when behind the wheel, without thinking of the consequences.

Many boat drivers choose to disobey rules and consume alcohol when behind the wheel, without thinking of the consequences. To make matters even more dangerous, licensed boat drivers will often relinquish the wheel to inexperienced friends or even children, assuming that nothing could go wrong in this seemingly innocuous situation.

Unfortunately, these are the actions that often lead to catastrophic boat accidents between two watercraft.

While drinking and boating are always a bad mix, this isn’t the only scenario that can lead to injurious or even fatal accidents on the water. Other common causes of watercraft collisions and falls overboard can include:

1. Boat operators who are fatigued or distracted.
2. Boat operators who are too inexperienced for the unique demands of that particular watercraft or body of water.
3. Speeding on the water.
4. Using improper maneuvers for the weather conditions (e.g. going too fast in thick fog).
5. Lack of a lookout watching for other watercraft.

In other cases, it’s not the operator who’s to blame – it’s their craft’s manufacturer or boat mechanic. Like any other type of vehicle, boats and watercraft need periodic maintenance and repairs and must be designed and assembled correctly in order to work properly. If a manufacturer uses faulty or defective parts or materials, or if a boat mechanic negligently fails to notice and correct a mechanical defect, even cautious and responsible operators can find themselves involved in serious water accidents.

Unlike with accidents on the road, it is uncommon for there to be witnesses to a boat wreck, due to the typical lack of traffic on the water. Because of this, it can be very difficult for you to singlehandedly show compelling proof that it wasn’t your fault – especially when you are already trying to recuperate from debilitating injuries and emotional trauma.

Let us help you so that you can get the rest you need. Our personal injury lawyers have extensive experience in this area and know exactly what to look for when working to secure the damages you need to cover anything from prescription medications to lost wages.

Work With an Oklahoma City Personal Injury Attorney Today

If you’re looking for an Oklahoma City personal injury lawyer, book a consultation with us. We will evaluate your claim and then move forward with your application if you have a case.

Call today to find out more.