DELVENTHAL LAW
SERIOUS ACCIDENTS CAN HAPPEN AT ANY TIME, AND IN ANY PLACE.
Whether you were injured while driving on the highway in Indiana, visiting at a local business, or while you were at a work, you need a strong legal advocate by your side. Unfortunately, businesses and their large insurance companies are rarely willing to offer injured victims full and fair compensation for their medical costs, lost income, and pain and suffering from workplace accidents. This is where our legal team can help.
At the Delventhal Law Office, our personal injury team has extensive experience representing injured victims in Indiana. We are committed to providing you and your family with top-quality legal representation and service. From our office in the heart of Fort Wayne, we handle a wide range of personal injury cases. If you or a family member has been hurt in an accident in Indiana, please contact our law firm today for immediate assistance with your case.
Here is how the process works. After you get in touch with our Fort Wayne personal injury attorney, we will schedule an initial FREE consultation session to understand the specifics of your accident. The initial consultation will help evaluate the relevant details of the case to get a whole picture. Generally, the next step is to thoroughly investigate all the circumstances around the accident by gathering evidence. This potentially includes:
- Photographs;
- CCTV footage;
- Medical reports;
- Expert opinions;
- Police reports.
In addition, our team will obtain testimonies from witnesses and other involved parties to bring together the full sequence of the events leading to the accident and catastrophic injuries. All this serves to build a strong case that will guarantee your compensation to the maximum extent.
Once we complete the investigation stage, our personal injury lawyer will proceed with launching active negotiations with insurance companies on your behalf. At this time, our primary aim will be to get you an entire compensation through a full and fair settlement amount. Our experienced lawyers, having dealt with numerous insurance companies, will work diligently to ensure a swift and efficient settlement that brings maximum compensation for you.
However, in certain cases, negotiations may fail to yield the desired results or the settlement offered may not be enough to cover the damages you have endured. In such instances, the Delventhal Law Office is ready and willing to take your case to court. Our seasoned lawyers have a proven track record of filing successful claims in court, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that you receive the justice and compensation you deserve.
FULL-SERVICE PERSONAL INJURY LAW FIRM SERVING FORT WAYNE
At the Delventhal Law Office, we are a full-service personal injury law firm, representing clients in Fort Wayne and throughout the state of Indiana. When our Fort Wayne personal injury lawyer takes on your personal injury claim, you can be sure that you are getting the professional legal guidance and individualized attention that you deserve. No personal injury case is too big or too small for our experienced personal injury lawyer to handle. We have experience with a wide range of different types of personal injury claims for injury victims to take care of medical bills. Some of the most notable examples of most personal injury cases and injuries include:
- Car accidents;
- Drunk driving accident claims;
- Uninsured/underinsured motorist cases;
- Commercial truck accidents;
- Motorcycle crashes;
- Bicycle accidents;
- Pedestrian collisions;
- Boating accidents;
- Indiana workers’ compensation claims;
- Construction site accidents;
- Medical malpractice case;
- Prescription drug injuries;
- Nursing home abuse and neglect;
- Birth injuries;
- Child accidents & injuries;
- Product liability claims;
- Premises liability claims;
- Slip and fall accidents;
- Dog bite injuries;
- Indiana wrongful death claims.
TAKE LEGAL ACTION
You Have Limited Time to Take Legal Action
Under Indiana’s statute of limitations, injured car accident victims only have a limited amount of time to bring forward a legal claim to our Indiana personal injury lawyers. In most Indiana personal injury lawsuits, victims have two years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit. There are very limited exceptions to this rule. You do not want to miss out on your ability to recover financial compensation as a result of a legal technicality. You should seek legal advice immediately with our Indiana law firm following serious car accidents and truck accidents, wrongful death claims, traumatic brain injuries, and other personal injuries to take care of medical expenses.
The sooner you contact a qualified Fort Wayne personal injury attorney, the more likely it is that your claim will be successful. Beyond ensuring that you comply with all legal deadlines, your attorney will be able to conduct an immediate investigation into your accident, gathering and assembling all relevant evidence into a compelling personal injury case. As time passes after fall accidents, some forms of evidence can be more difficult to obtain.
When an individual suffers an injury, it’s often a case that they do not seek justice due to potentially high costs and the long duration of the legal process. However, this should never discourage you. It’s important to remember that it’s always worth it to hold those responsible for serious injury accountable, claim justice, and seek the compensation you deserve.
At Delventhal Law Office, we understand all the concerns you may have regarding pursuing legal action. This is why we offer free consultation, allowing you to explore your legal options without any financial commitment or the obligation to proceed. Moreover, our personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis. In simple terms, you have to pay only if we win the case for you. In addition to being a financially advantageous offer, this also gives you assurance that our lawyers will have every motivation to spare no effort for you.
Our team of experienced attorneys will work diligently to ensure that you win your case in a timely manner, with minimal personal involvement. So do not delay taking legal action, count on our expertise and get your due compensation on time.
WE HOLD NEGLIGENT DEFENDANTS ACCOUNTABLE
For the most part, personal injury claims are brought under state law. Indiana is a comparative negligence jurisdiction (I.C. § 34-51-2-6[1]). In order to hold a defendant legally liable for your injuries, you will be required to establish that their negligent conduct, to some degree, played a role in causing your accident. In the most straightforward terms, negligence is a failure to take proper care. This means that negligence is a careless or reckless action or inaction that should have been avoided by a reasonable person or entity. Of course, applying negligence to a real-world situation can be deeply complex. To prove negligence of a motorcycle accident, or other personal injuries, your personal injury attorney in Fort Wayne, IN must be able to establish the following four factors:
- The defendant owed you a duty of care;
- The duty of care was breached by the defendant;
- There is causation between their breach and your injuries; and
- You sustained real harm in the accident.
The Indiana law that applies to your personal injury case
Indiana personal-injury law rests on four classical elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. The defendant must owe a legal duty of care to the plaintiff, breach that duty by acting unreasonably or violating a safety standard, proximately cause the resulting injury, and produce compensable harm. Most claims must be filed within two years under IC 34-11-2-4[2]. Indiana applies the 51% modified comparative-fault rule under IC 34-51-2-6[1] — if the jury allocates 51% or more of the fault to the plaintiff, recovery is barred entirely. Government-defendant cases trigger Indiana Tort Claims Act notice as short as 180 days under IC 34-13-3-8[3].
How insurance carriers fight Fort Wayne personal injury claims
Insurance carriers across every personal-injury subtype share a common playbook. First, they attack causation — arguing the injury was pre-existing, degenerative, or caused by something other than the incident. Second, they attack damages — pulling every prior medical record, minimizing the imaging, and arguing the treatment was excessive or unrelated. Third, they attack comparative fault — pushing the plaintiff's percentage upward through speed, lane position, attention, or supervision arguments. Fourth, they delay — slow-walking discovery, sequential medical exams, and offers that come in well below documented economic damages. We counter with documented timelines, treating-provider testimony, the regulatory and safety frameworks specific to the underlying tort, and federal injury and fatality research at sources like the CDC transportation-safety portal[4] and the underlying-tort regulators.
Evidence we preserve in the first 48 hours
Personal-injury cases live and die on the evidence collected in the first 30 days — scene, witnesses, medical records, and electronic data.
- Police, OSHA, or other incident-report documentation prepared by the responding investigator, with body-camera or supplemental narrative when available.
- Surveillance video, dashcam footage, doorbell-camera recordings, and any third-party electronic data, secured by preservation letter within days.
- Photographs of the scene, the hazard, vehicle or product damage, and any visible injuries taken before cleanup, repair, or healing alters the evidence.
- Witness statements taken within days of the incident, while memories are fresh and before the defendant's investigator has shaped the narrative.
- Complete medical records from EMS through emergency department, specialty care, surgery, physical therapy, and any permanent-impairment evaluation.
Damages categories in an Indiana personal injury case
Indiana personal-injury damages divide into economic and non-economic recovery. Economic damages cover past and future medical care, lost wages, and lost future earning capacity. Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, and emotional distress. Punitive damages are available under IC 34-51-3[5] for willful or wanton conduct, capped and partially diverted to the state. Federal injury and fatality research curated at the CDC transportation-safety portal[4] and similar authoritative sources grounds the future-care and severity arguments insurers routinely try to minimize.
What our personal injury clients ask most
What are the elements of a personal-injury claim in Indiana?
Indiana personal-injury claims rest on four elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages. The defendant must owe a legal duty of care, breach it by acting unreasonably or violating a safety standard, proximately cause the resulting injury, and produce compensable harm. Each element requires its own evidence — duty from the relationship or statute, breach from conduct and standards, causation from medical and reconstruction proof, damages from records.
How long do I have to file an Indiana personal-injury lawsuit?
Indiana's general personal-injury statute of limitations is two years from the date of injury under IC 34-11-2-4[2]. Government-defendant cases trigger Indiana Tort Claims Act notice deadlines as short as 180 days under IC 34-13-3-8[3]. Medical-malpractice cases follow the Medical Malpractice Act procedure under IC 34-18[6]. Claims by injured minors are tolled under IC 34-11-6-1[7] until the child turns 18.
What is Indiana's comparative-fault rule and how does it affect my case?
Indiana applies a 51% modified comparative-fault rule under IC 34-51-2-6[1]. A jury allocates a percentage of fault to each party. If the injured plaintiff is found 50% or less at fault, damages are reduced by that percentage. If the plaintiff is found 51% or more at fault, recovery is barred entirely. Early evidence preservation and reconstruction protect against fault-shifting at trial.
What damages can I recover in an Indiana personal-injury case?
Indiana allows recovery for past and future medical expenses, lost wages, lost future earning capacity, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, disfigurement, and emotional distress. Punitive damages are available under IC 34-51-3[5] for willful, wanton, or intentionally tortious conduct, though punitive awards are capped and a portion is paid to the state's violent-crime victims fund.
Do I have to go to court for a personal-injury case in Indiana?
Most Indiana personal-injury cases resolve through pre-suit negotiation or post-suit mediation before reaching a jury trial. Filing suit and conducting discovery (depositions, written discovery, expert disclosure) often produces a settlement once the case is fully developed. Trials remain available when the carrier refuses to fairly evaluate documented damages, and the threat of trial drives most settlements.
What happens after you hire us
From day one, we preserve the scene, photograph injuries and property damage, send preservation letters on any electronic evidence, and notify the at-fault carrier that all communications run through this office. We coordinate ongoing medical care, send a documented demand once you reach maximum medical improvement, and — if the carrier's offer falls short — file suit in Allen Superior Court or wherever venue is proper. Every step is on a contingency-fee basis: no fee unless we recover.
