During a personal injury claim, several questions will need to be addressed. However, there are few questions more pressing in these cases than whether or not negligence was present.
Negligence is a legal term that has been around for over 100 years. Essentially, it means a standard of behavior that falls below how a reasonable person would have behaved in similar conditions.
How is negligence established in personal injury cases? Here are the basics:
Was a duty of care owed?
The first thing that must be established is whether or not the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care. This is more complex in some cases than others. For car crash cases, it is relatively straightforward. All road users owe each other a duty of care.
Was there a breach of duty of care?
The next aspect of establishing negligence involves assessing whether or not the duty of care was breached. In other words, would a reasonable person have behaved the same way in similar conditions? For instance, another reasonable person may have accidentally exceeded the speed limit by 1 mph. However, a reasonable person would most likely not exceed the speed limit by 50mph. The latter scenario is more likely to constitute a breach of duty of care.
Did the breach cause injuries?
There are two further elements to establishing negligence. Firstly, did the breach of duty directly cause injuries to the plaintiff? Secondly, did those injuries result in quantifiable damages, such as medical bills?
If your accident was caused by someone else’s negligence, personal injury compensation could be an option. Seek legal guidance to find out more about the law in this area.