Understanding Personal Injury Law & What Negligence Is

In general, negligent conduct is recklessness that leads to injury to somebody else. It could be an act, like recklesslessly knocking a rock off a rooftop, or a failure to react, like a landlord who doesn’t fix a broken or cracked stairway. Negligence typically provides the grounds for personal injury legal cases.

To win a legal claim for negligent conduct, the injury victim (the person filing the legal action) needs to present four points: That the defendant (the individual or entity being sued) owed the plaintiff a duty of reasonable care; that the accused failed to use due care towards the plaintiff (i.e. breached the duty); that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s injury; and that the injury victim suffered damages as a result.

Duty of reasonable care: The plaintiff needs to prove that the negligent party had a duty of care toward the injury victim. Someone has a duty to avoid causing an injury to another if a reasonable individual in the same situation could foresee that an act (or failure to behave) might lead to injury. Some instances are very clear. We all know that someone might be injured if we run a traffic light, so we have a duty of due care to follow traffic laws and signals. Other scenarios are more challenging. If a property owner has a private swimming pool in a fenced yard, does he have a duty to prevent a neighbor child from climbing the fence and accidentally drowning in the pool? How much care would a reasonable individual take in that scenario? In each instance, the factors relating to the personal injury play an important role in identifying whether or not a accused had a duty of reasonable care towards the injury victim.

Breach of Duty: The plaintiff has to demonstrate that the accused failed to carry out their duty of due care. For example, a normal person could foresee that a truck full of dynamite might ignite, so a person who parks such a vehicle in a crowded parking lot has breached the duty of due care to the other individuals nearby. If the vehicle blows up, the driver could be guilty of negligence. Somebody could also foresee that a car that isn’t fixed correctly could malfunction, so if the brakes on a poorly repaired car fail and the car hits a kid, the owner of the car might have breached the duty of reasonable care to that child. Each car owner has a duty to maintain the car in a safe and sound condition. Alternatively, if the owner routinely maintains and repairs the car and the brakes failed because the brakes were faulty or the mechanic made a mistake, the owner did not breach a duty of due care, though the brake manufacturer or the mechanic might be accountable.

Lead to: The injured party will need to prove that the defendant’s breach of duty brought on the injury for which the injured party is suing. Often causation is obvious. If you run a red light and hit a pedestrian, you clearly caused the personal injury. If the pedestrian’s elderly mother has a heart attack and passes away when she hears of her daughter’s injury, did you lead to that injury? Probably not, but those are the kinds of concerns that have to be resolved in a negligence legal action. There may also be issues about what injuries was caused by an accident. People often have more than one accident in their lives, so if somebody has had two prior back injuries, exactly what injury to the back was caused by the most recent fall down a flight of stairs?

Damages: Damages in a negligent conduct legal action try to put the injury victim in the same situation he or she would be in if the accident hadn’t happened. A plaintiff has to demonstrate the economic value of his or her injuries. For example, if someone is disabled and may no longer work, a calculation of damages would consider the job of the injured party and the amount he or she would have earned during the time left in a normal working career. Damages would also include medical expenses and estimated costs for medical treatment, special accommodations, and assisted living.

In some situations accused are at fault for negligent conduct as of the operation of law, and not because they immediately caused an injury. As an example, since an employer is held to blame for injuries caused by employees during work, UPS may be liable if a UPS driver has an accident while making deliveries. A hospital may be held responsible for injury caused by only one nurse. Injury victims typically make claims against several negligent parties to make sure there will be enough assets (money) to pay a judgment.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you should speak with a New Jersey car accident attorney about your case. Talking to experienced New Jersey injury lawyers will help you understand your rights and options.