What Is Injury Law?

Lawsuits involving injury focus on civil wrongs that can cause harm to your body, mind and emotions. The goal of a successful lawsuit is to obtain money for damages such as medical bills, pain and discomfort.

It's hard to avoid injuries such as this, but it's crucial to protect yourself as much as possible. If you're likely to fall forward, you should turn your head to shield it and use your arms.

Negligence

Anyone who suffers injuries or other losses due to an act of negligence by another person may file a negligence lawsuit and seek financial compensation. To prove their case the claimant will need to prove four things: duty, breach of duty, causation and damages.

Negligence is when a person fails to act in a way that reasonable people would act in similar circumstances. For instance, a driver must follow traffic laws to avoid injuries and accidents to others on the road. A doctor must treat patients in the same manner that an individual with similar training would under similar circumstances. Lawyers may also rely on experts to prove that the defendant's conduct fell in line with industry standards.

To prevail in a negligence lawsuit the plaintiff must show that the breach by the defendant was the sole cause of the injury. This is called legal causation, and a good personal injury attorney will argue that the defendant's actions could have been the sole cause of their injuries.

The plaintiff must prove that their injuries resulted in verifiable monetary loss like medical bills and lost income. Gross negligence is the most serious form of negligent behavior because it entails reckless disregard for the safety of others. Gross negligence occurs when a nursing house does not change the bandages on patients for a period of time. In certain states, defendants can use a defense called contributory negligence to bar the plaintiff from claiming damages.

Statute of limitations

If the negligent actions of another or reckless disregard for your safety causes injury to you, the law provides the victim with a certain amount of time to make a claim, also known as the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is established by the state legislature to ensure timely filing and avoid unreasonable delays.

The time limit for filing a claim varies from state to state and also from type of injury to kind of injury. In Pennsylvania, for example car accidents, for instance are covered for two years to file a personal injury lawsuit. However, some claims may be subject to what's known as the discovery rule, meaning that the statute of limitations does not begin until your injury is discovered or should reasonably have been discovered.

In other situations which involve intentional torts, including assaults and defamation, false imprisonment, and the deliberate infliction of emotional distress, the statute of limitations is longer. A statute of limitation can also be extended or waived in certain cases, such as when minors are involved or a person is on military duty or incarcerated.

If you try to file a lawsuit after the statute of limitation has expired, your case could be dismissed without hearing. Therefore, it is important to consult a seasoned injury lawyer prior to when the statute runs out.

Damages

Many expenses associated with an injury come with costs. These are known as special damages and can include medical expenses, out-of-pocket costs, lost wages, the cost to repair or replace your property, and other fixed sums. The law does not limit the amount of special damages you can claim.

Other losses are harder to quantify, for instance pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life, and a variety of other intangible harms. Putting a dollar amount on the subjective loss of physical or emotional pain can be challenging but attorneys and insurance companies employ formulas to try to quantify these losses.

A person who is a plaintiff in a whiplash case, for example might have sustained serious injuries that affect their daily lives. They may need help with chores around the home, eat in a different way and not be able to participate in recreational activities or socializing with family. The victim might experience an absence of pleasure and this is recoverable as general damages.

To determine the value of a claim for general damages lawyers and insurance companies typically start with calculating the total for medical special damages. They then add the value of any income loss. Then, they will multiply this by a figure between 1.5 and 5. More severe injuries usually result in more multipliers.

Liability

In law, liability refers to the person who is accountable for an injury or harm. This can be due to strict liability or negligence. Most lawsuits involving injuries are based on the idea of negligence. Negligence involves failing to act in a reasonable manner and with care in the context of the situation. Jurors evaluate what an average person would have done in similar circumstances, and then decide if the defendant's actions or inaction was a violation of this standard. Certain injury cases are based solely on strict liability. For instance, if a defective product is the cause of injury.

Victims could also be entitled to compensation, in addition to economic damages, for non-economic losses such as pain and discomfort. It can be difficult to determine the value of these damages however, our injury attorneys are adept at maximizing your claim's value.

The majority of personal injury lawsuits (reviews over at Counseling Online Wfu) involve a single plaintiff against several defendants, however there are also multi-plaintiff lawsuits such as class actions and mass torts. One or more plaintiffs could be a corporation such as a pharmaceutical company or an insurance company, injury lawsuits or it could be another individual like you. In these kinds of cases, several parties could be held accountable based on the evidence presented by each plaintiff and on the findings of a thorough investigation. Contact us immediately if you were injured by someone else's negligence or wrongdoing.