Fires seem so rare, but all too often, people are far more affected than it would seem from an outsider’s perspective. Injuries related to arson can not only be lifechanging, but they can break apart a family. Deaths involved and planned out arson can tear a family apart as they try to determine how to recover from the incident as a family.
When someone has set fire to your house, play yard, or any other property, then you should pursue not only criminal charges but civil charges as well. Even if it were a friend, a well-known neighborhood child, or teen, it doesn’t matter. You must take action in an attempt to cover your medical bills and property damage. If you need help with this process, contact a local Henderson, NV personal injury attorney right away.
Injuries and Other Elements Related to Arson
Burn injuries, smoke inhalation, lung damage, and even tripping because you couldn’t see through the smoke are all injuries involved in arson. Then you have property damage to consider. Your homeowner’s insurance or your renter’s insurance may cover a portion of the costs from the arson, but they may defer you to pursue compensation from the accused of the rest.
Typically you shouldn’t count on insurance covering everything because those companies fight to pay out as little as possible. Arson is a big issue because often, the victims are left in the lurch for days, weeks, or months. They’re left either in the hospital or hotels while they’re trying to recover from their injuries. Then they have to map out how to make it to their doctor’s appointments if they’re well-enough or capable of driving themselves. Injuries are only one element of the issues that come with surviving arson.
How Can You Prove Fault in Arson?
When there’s a fire, an arson investigation will always follow. Now dependent upon the arson investigation, the fire may or may not get coverage through your existing insurance policies. Arson investigations work in two-fold, first, they prove that the fire was set intentionally or unintentionally, then they determine if it was set who was behind the metaphorical match.
First responders are key in assessing scenes immediately looking for accelerants or points where the fire started. Afterward, an investigative team would look further for break-in points or assess if a third-party was behind the fire. But, while they’re also doing their investigation, they’re checking for fraud as well.
The most direct way to prove fault in an arson situation is to assess that the fire was intentional then use evidence to tie a person to the start of that fire. In the past, this has been done with forensic methods, but often to get actual proof of fault, you need a confession. Arson is extraordinarily hard to prove because so much evidence is lost in the inferno. Seen in recent years, arson was suspected in many of California’s fires in 2019. Little can be done to assess which of the hundreds of thousands of suspects could have done it.
Will the Criminal Trial Change Anything?
If you do have someone charged with arson, then that trial may substantially change things for your claim. What you’re looking at with a criminal trial is that the state will seek to bring justice against the accused arsonist. During or after the trial, your civil case could pull on the determination or evidence from that trial for its own use.
Ultimately though, you shouldn’t expect any type of compensation from a criminal trial as that’s not its purpose. Instead, you’ll want to set up a civil case where you pursue compensation from the person who set fire to your home or property.
Will You Go Through Your Homeowner’s Insurance First?
Yes, you should go through your homeowner’s insurance first for property damage. Often as long as a resident of the house wasn’t the person who initiated the fire, they will provide coverage for lost property.
Contact a Henderson Personal Injury Attorney for Injuries Related to Arson
After any arson, you may have some options to handle your property damage or injuries related to arson. You may first go through your homeowners or renter’s insurance, but often, these policies simply won’t cover everything. What you need is to file a claim that will pursue the damages in the way of medical bills and your rehabilitation.
When you have arson-related injuries, it’s likely that you’ll go through both the initial criminal trial and a civil trial to follow to cover your injuries. You can contact our local Henderson, NV personal injury law firm by calling or visiting our offices.
