Injury Due to Negligence: What You Need to Know
Personal injury is an unfortunate but common experience that can be caused by different factors. However, when someone’s negligence or carelessness results in your injury, you might be entitled to compensation. In this article, we will take a deep dive into injury due to negligence and explore what it means, the different types, and how to pursue legal action.
What is Negligence?
Negligence is a legal term that refers to the failure of an individual or a business to act with reasonable care and caution, which results in harm or injury. Generally, people have a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid causing harm to others.
The law requires people to act in a manner that is consistent with how a reasonable person would behave in similar circumstances. Therefore, if someone fails to exercise reasonable care, and their actions cause injury or harm to another person, they can be held liable for the resulting damage.
To establish negligence, there are four elements that must be present. These are:
1. Duty of Care: The defendant must owe the plaintiff (the injured party) a duty of care. This means that the defendant had an obligation to take reasonable care to avoid causing harm to the plaintiff.
2. Breach of Duty: The defendant must have breached that duty of care by failing to act reasonably in the circumstances.
3. Causation: The plaintiff must show that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the injury or harm.
4. Damages: Finally, the plaintiff must have suffered some injury, harm or loss as a result of the negligence.
Different Types of Negligence
Negligence can take many forms, and it is important to understand the distinctions between them to determine which type might have caused your injury.
Medical Negligence
This type of negligence occurs when a healthcare professional fails to provide adequate and reasonable care to a patient, resulting in an injury or harm. Medical negligence can happen due to several reasons, including misdiagnosis, wrong medication, delay in treatment, or surgical errors.
To prove medical negligence, you must show that the medical professional failed to exercise reasonable care and caution, and that this failure caused your injury.
Premises Liability
Premises liability is a situation where a property owner or occupier fails to provide a reasonable standard of safety on their property. Examples of premises liability include slip and fall accidents, dog bites, and swimming pool accidents.
To establish premises liability, you must show that the property owner or occupier had a duty of care to provide a safe environment, that they breached that duty of care, and that this breach caused your injury.
Product Liability
Product liability occurs when a defective or faulty product causes injury or harm to a consumer. Examples of product liability cases include the faulty airbags used by some car manufacturers, defective medical devices, and improperly labeled medications.
To prove product liability, you need to show that the product was defective, that the defect caused your injury, and the product was being used as intended.
Car Accidents
Car accidents are common, and they can result from various factors, including distracted driving, drunk driving, speeding, or poor road conditions. In case of a car accident, it is important to determine who was at fault and whether their negligence caused the accident.
To establish negligence in a car accident, you must show that the driver had a duty to exercise reasonable care, that they breached that duty by driving negligently, and that this breach caused the accident and your resulting injuries.
How to Pursue Legal Action for an Injury Due to Negligence
If you have suffered an injury due to someone’s negligence, you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries, medical bills, and other related expenses. Pursuing legal action involves the following steps:
1. Seek Medical Attention: Your health and safety should come first. Seek medical attention for your injuries as soon as possible, even if they seem minor.
2. Document the Accident: Collect as much information as possible about the accident, including taking photos, getting witness statements, and filing an incident report if applicable.
3. Contact a Personal Injury Lawyer: It is advisable to contact a qualified personal injury lawyer with experience in handling cases involving negligence. They can provide guidance on the legal process, evaluate your case, and help you determine whether you are entitled to compensation.
4. File a Claim: Your lawyer will file a claim against the responsible party, seeking compensation for your injuries, medical bills, and other related expenses.
5. Negotiate or Litigate: The responsible party may choose to negotiate a settlement with you or your lawyer. If they refuse to take responsibility or offer an adequate settlement, you may need to litigate your case in court.
Latest Information on Injury Due to Negligence
According to data from the National Safety Council (NSC), there were over 44 million personal injuries in the United States in 2019. This marks an increase from the previous year, indicating that personal injury cases are on the rise.
Additionally, the NSC reports that workplace deaths in the U.S. have increased by 2% from 2018 to 2019. Workplace injuries and deaths can result from different factors, including lack of training, inadequate safety measures, and poor working conditions.
Conclusion
Injury due to negligence can be a frustrating and painful experience, but you have legal options. Understanding the different types of negligence and the legal process involved can help you protect your rights and pursue compensation for your injuries. Remember to seek medical attention, document the accident, and contact a qualified personal injury lawyer for guidance.
The occurrences of various forms of personal injury, and under various circumstances, can be responded to through the filing of civil lawsuits in the American legal system, allowing affected individuals to recover damages from the people they feel to be responsible for their plight.
These cases can be responded to through either an intentional tort or the claim of negligence. Through the latter, the defendant accused of negligence is not claimed to have willed the suffering of injury or distress by the plaintiff, but to have failed to carry out a responsibility to prevent such ill-effects from being felt. Many personal injury lawsuits take this form, such as include occurrences of medical negligence, in which the accused individuals failed to adequately provide for the care of their patient.
Negligence torts thus may not be as rigorous as intentional ones, since cases falling into that category require the court to make judgments about the defendant’s thinking. Lawsuits such as medical negligence, on the other hand, are essentially focused on the resulting injuries. That being said, proving the liability of someone for negligence in an American court does require the plaintiff to show that certain factors are present in the case.
The first consideration taken into account in a negligence case is whether the defendant had a responsibility to provide for the safety of others in a certain way. This factor can be easily demonstrated in, for instance, a medical negligence case, in which the physicians and assisting medical staff have a well-understood duty to provide for the health of the patient. The second determination to be made is whether the defendant then failed to carry out that duty.
Again, in a medical negligence case this could be shown if the physician or the hospital did not attend to the sanitary conditions of the instruments or operating space. Though people who fail to live up to these considerations might be generally considered unfit for their profession, for the failure of duty to specifically pertain to the case being tried it must be shown that this particular failure led to plaintiff suffering the personal injury.
If a case such as medical negligence is proven in court, it is likely to have a substantially adverse effect on the ability of the defendant to carry out he or his chosen profession. Torts of negligence are not, however, conceived of as methods for punishment, but rather as a means of holding people to the obligation to provide for the consequences of their actions and to relieve the financial burden often faced by the injured. In this regard, torts of negligence are considered compensatory rather than punitive legal measures.
In addition to medical negligence, other common forms of negligence which are alleged and addressed under civil law include the failure of building owners to provide for the safety of visitors and residents and the negligence of employers in allowing specific activities or general working conditions to create an unsafe environment which threatens the security and well-being of their employees.
