Negligence: Law, Theory, and Lawyer Near Me

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 What is Negligence?

Actionable Insights and Helpful Tips

Actionable Insights and Helpful Tips

  1. Understand that negligence requires proving a duty, breach, causation, and damages.
  2. Keep thorough documentation of incidents and related medical treatments.
  3. Consult with a personal injury attorney to assess your case’s viability.
  4. Be prepared to counter defenses like contributory negligence and assumption of risk.
  5. Act quickly due to statutes of limitations, which set time limits for filing lawsuits.

Most people have heard stories where someone acted carelessly and ended up hurting another person and then the injured party sued to get compensation. You’ve probably come across these scenarios in news stories or maybe even in your own community. Negligence is a legal concept that lets injured people get compensation when someone else’s carelessness causes them harm.

A person is considered negligent if they acted carelessly given the circumstances surrounding the situation. The law looks at if someone failed to use proper care in the way a normal person would have acted in that same situation.

How Do You Prove Negligence?

Duty

When we talk about duty, we’re talking about the responsibility that one person owes to another person. Most people who are going about their everyday activities owe what lawyers call a duty of “reasonable care” to those around them. Think of reasonable care as the level of attention and caution that any ordinary person would use if they found themselves in the same situation. Let’s say you’re driving your car during a heavy rainstorm. If you want to exercise reasonable care, that would mean you’d slow down your speed and turn on your headlights to improve your visibility on the road. Someone who decides to drive forty miles per hour over the speed limit during that same rainstorm would definitely not be exercising reasonable care.

Breach

A breach happens when someone’s level of care falls below the standard that their duty expects of them. In our driving example from above, the person who chose to drive forty miles per hour over the speed limit during the rainstorm breached their duty of reasonable care to other drivers on the road.

Causation

Any breach of duty has to be the actual cause of the injury that occurred. The legal test that courts use for causation can get pretty complicated. But the basic test relies on what lawyers call the “but for” principle. Put simply, this means the injury wouldn’t have happened if not for one party’s specific actions. Back to our rainstorm example, if the person who was driving too fast didn’t have enough time to stop before they hit another car, then they breached their duty of reasonable care, and the breach directly caused injury to the people in the other car.

Damages

You usually need to show that some form of actual harm took place. The type of injury can vary quite a bit, and it might range from property damage and emotional distress all of the way to lost wages from missing work.

Each of these four elements needs to be present if you want to successfully prove that the other party was negligent. If you can’t prove any one of these elements, then you won’t be able to prove negligence in your case.

What are Some Examples of Negligence?

Car crashes give us the clearest example of negligence. But negligence actually shows up in many different contexts beyond just physical injuries. You can even see lawsuits over emotional harm like PTSD that comes from someone’s negligent behavior.

Negligence happens at work all of the time too. An employer could be negligent by not giving an employee the right safety equipment that would have prevented an injury from happening. When companies skimp on training and supervision, that can cause employer negligence and put employees at risk for injuries.

Businesses can also act negligently by manufacturing faulty products that cause injury to their customers. When companies negligently make or design products for sale, that can cause a lawsuit down the road. Let’s say a company doesn’t test a toaster to make sure it won’t burst into flames, then that would be negligent manufacturing. Designing a toaster with flammable materials would be negligent design. Either way, these scenarios can land a business in some serious legal hot water.

Even lawyers aren’t immune to negligence claims when they make mistakes. If a lawyer’s behavior falls below the standard level of care expected of lawyers (which is actually higher than normal care), they can be sued for what’s called malpractice.

Are There Any Defenses to Negligence?

A few different defenses will help you fight back against a negligence claim. The easiest way is to challenge any of the main parts of negligence, including duty, breach, causation, or damages. You can argue that one or more of these elements doesn’t apply to your situation.

These two related defenses look at whether the injured person contributed to their own injury. Depending on your state’s laws, you’ll see one approach or the other. But the core concept stays the same.

Contributory negligence

In contributory negligence states, any fault on the injured person’s part completely prevents them from recovering damages. They walk away with nothing.

Comparative negligence

In comparative negligence jurisdictions, the injured person can still recover money. But their award gets cut based on how much they contributed to the accident. So if they were 30% at fault, their damages get cut by 30%.

Assumption of risk

The assumption of risk defense argues that the injured person knew they were taking part in a dangerous activity and chose to try it anyway. When this defense works, you won’t have to pay damages. Take skiing, for example, everyone knows that skiing leads to broken bones and bad injuries. People choose to ski anyway, accepting that danger as part of the activity.

Statute of limitations

Every state sets time limits for filing lawsuits and these deadlines can protect you. If the plaintiff waits too long to file their case, you can ask the court to dismiss it completely. The clock usually starts ticking from the date of the injury, though some exceptions apply in some situations.

Superseding cause

This defense deals with unexpected events that happen after your alleged negligent actions but before the actual injury happens. If something unforeseeable breaks the chain between your actions and the person’s injury, you might escape liability. Here’s a scenario: a construction company leaves heavy machinery on the sidewalk. A pedestrian trips over the equipment and gets hurt, then decides to sue the company for negligence. But here’s the twist, after the pedestrian tripped, a car ran a red light and hit another vehicle. This created a chain reaction of crashes that actually caused the pedestrian’s injuries. The construction company could argue that the car accident was completely unforeseeable and broke the connection between their negligence and the pedestrian’s harm. This might protect them from having to pay damages.

Government immunity

Government entities sometimes get extra protection from negligence claims. This immunity usually covers discretionary decisions or choices that involve policy-making or planning by government officials. Consider a city that runs a local park. Someone walking through the park trips over a cracked sidewalk and gets injured. They decide to sue the city for negligence. But the crack came from a tree root that grew over time and lifted the concrete. The city had a policy to check sidewalks and make repairs when needed. But limited resources meant they hadn’t yet checked that particular area. The city might claim government immunity here. Since the choice to prioritize and allocate resources for sidewalk inspections counts as a discretionary role, the government could be protected from liability for the person’s injuries.

Do I Need a Lawyer If I Am Dealing with a Negligence Lawsuit?

When you face negligence, the whole situation can feel overwhelming and expensive. At LegalMatch, we connect you with a local personal injury lawyer who will guide you through your case and help you see all your options.

A personal injury attorney will handle negotiations with the other party on your behalf. They’ll also give you solid advice on how to move forward with your case and represent you in court, if that becomes necessary.

If you decide to take your lawsuit to court, you’ll definitely want an attorney by your side. At LegalMatch, we help match you with the right attorney for your specific situation, which makes the whole legal process much more manageable and way less stressful for you.

Go ahead and visit us at LegalMatch right now to find the perfect personal injury lawyer for your case.

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