I SLIPPED AND FELL FROM MY BIKE, DUE TO A GAP HOLES BETWEEN TWO PEPEDICULLAR STEEL EXPANSION GAPS(STRAIGHT AHEAD, ALONG THE ROAD,1/4 INWARDS IN THE PUBLIC ROAD)RESULTING ,LIKELY DISACLOCATION OF KEFT SHOULDER (PRESENTLY LEFT SEEMS HIGHER THAN RIGHT..but the doctor denied its normal, his also ..reflex in same manners) and with left hip avulsion fragements,(chippings) causing agony pains when walking,biking,driving,carrying weight,sleepless night. AM I ENTITLE FOR ANY CLAIMS..

I SLIPPED AND FELL FROM MY BIKE, DUE TO A GAP HOLES BETWEEN TWO PEPEDICULLAR STEEL EXPANSION GAPS(STRAIGHT AHEAD, ALONG THE ROAD,1/4 INWARDS IN THE PUBLIC ROAD)RESULTING ,LIKELY DISACLOCATION OF KEFT SHOULDER (PRESENTLY LEFT SEEMS HIGHER THAN RIGHT..but the doctor denied its normal, his also ..reflex in same manners) and with left hip avulsion fragements,(chippings) causing agony pains when walking,biking,driving,carrying weight,sleepless night. AM I ENTITLE FOR ANY CLAIMS..

Hi! You're on the right track to resolving your potential claims because you've identified what caused your injuries and are getting your injuries evaluated and treated.

There are a lot of factors involved in evaluating the value of your potential claim, including what state you live in (or the accident occurred in), who owns the road you were riding along, and how much money you will have to spend to repair or replace your bicycle and treat your injuries.

The best person to assess this for you will be a personal injury (also called PI) attorney. There are many ways to find a qualified attorney in your area, including looking in the yellow pages, getting referrals from friends, or calling your local state bar association. Many attorneys will accept cases on a contingency basis (http://nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/BB91CF4B-6389-4422-B4E20D183A7ADB41/alpha/C/) before they even evaluate the potential value of your claim. You can save yourself some time and money, as well as make certain that the attorney who looks over your claim will have all the details, by doing much of the work of organizing your case yourself.

An excellent guide to the procedure you will need to go through can be found in the Nolo Press (http://nolo.com/index.cfm) book How to Win Your Personal Injury Claim (http://nolo.com/product.cfm/ObjectID/DA77A617-5E9E-42F3-8E17385C77C8AB8E/catid/73BB194F-C331-4C03-82E96DC64062980C/104/199/). This book will walk you through all the steps required to gather your medical and property damage records, organize the evidence, and interview attorneys until you find one whom you feel confident will aggressively pursue your interests and get you the best possible settlement.

While you can demand a settlement from the property owner's insurance company or file a lawsuit yourself, you may want to consider hiring a PI attorney to represent your case. Good attorneys can fill out standard legal documents in minutes, while it may take the average person hours, even using an excellent guidebooks. The attorneys hired by the insurance company know that time is on their side -- they can delay your case for years, until any potential witnesses have moved away or forgotten what they saw. They can also send you so many confusing legal documents, each with its own deadline, that you are sometimes tricked into making a small error that essentially loses your case for you. I used to work for that sort of law firm and saw examples of these strategies being used quite successfully. It's still a good idea to find a copy of the Nolo book at your local library or to buy one as it will answer most of your questions about what will happen in the course of your lawsuit; you'd rather have your attorney working hard on your case instead of spending hours on the phone explaining court procedures to you!

Let me know if you have any other questions as you get started with your case. It's important to check the statute of limitations (http://nolo.com/definition.cfm/Term/3A70C659-18F8-45C6-B520BB9A43E18BA7/alpha/S/) for your particular state (http://www.drugintel.com/public/statute_of_limitations.htm). If too much time has passed since your accident occurred, you will not be able to file a lawsuit.

Good luck. I hope the above information will help you out. Since I'm not yet an attorney, I summarized the above information from the Nolo Press book(s) and Web site(s) I linked to above.