Personal Injury: Suing for Negligence

Negligence is often the basis of personal injury lawsuits. In a lawsuit involving the claim of negligence, a plaintiff will be required to prove four elements. These four elements are that the defendant owed the plaintiff a certain duty of care; that the defendant did not exercise due care to the plaintiff; that the defendant's breach of duty somehow caused injury of the plaintiff; and that the plaintiff has suffered damages as a result of defendant's breach of duty.

It may be very important for a plaintiff to hire an attorney for one's negligence case. Often, these various elements of negligence have been interpreted in various ways amongst different jurisdictions. In some jurisdictions, there may be a majority rule governing duty of care, while in other jurisdictions the rule differs. A lawyer will know precisely the types of jurisdictions in which a plaintiff's case may be filed and how that jurisdiction may accordingly rule on a case.

Each element required for proving negligence may seem straightforward, however, the truth is that the common laws behind each element can become easily complicated. For example, the element of causation contains many different concepts of causation. There may be cause-in-fact causation, or there may be more indirect causes that lead to a plaintiff's injury. It is incredibly important to be precise when filing a negligence cause of action in court.

For proving duty of care, a plaintiff will need to show that the defendant had a duty to avoid causing the injury, such that a reasonable person in a similar situation would foresee that the action would cause the injury. In other cases, there may be different standards of care applied to a defendant. For example, if a case deals with a child defendant, than that child may be held to a child standard of care rather than a reasonable person standard of care. The child defendant would be held to act as a reasonable child under the same circumstances and with a like capacity would act. These types of standards are referred to as objective standards. A subjective standard would analyze whether or not a particular defendant acted to the best of his or her judgment.

Fulfilling the causation element can also be difficult for a plaintiff within a negligence case. Because there are many types of causation, it is important to have a great lawyer working on one's legal case or scenario.