What Is Injury Law?

Injury law focuses on civil wrongs that can cause harm to your body emotions and mind. The goal of a successful injury lawsuit is to collect an amount of money to compensate for damages, such as medical bills and suffering and pain.

It's hard to avoid injuries, but it's important to ensure that you are protected as much as is possible. If you're likely to fall forward, you should turn your head to protect it and use your arms.

Negligence

A person who has sustained injuries or other losses as a result of negligence of another can make a claim for negligence and seek financial compensation. To establish their case, the plaintiff must establish four elements that are: breach of duty, causation and damages.

Negligence is defined as a person's failure to act with the same level of care a reasonably prudent person would have in similar situations. For example, a motorist must adhere to traffic laws to avoid accidents and injury to others on the road. A doctor is required to provide patients with the same care similar to that a similarly trained medical professional would offer in similar situations. A lawyer may utilize expert testimony to prove that the defendant's behavior fell short of the industry standards.

To prevail in a negligence lawsuit, the plaintiff has to prove that the breach of the defendant was the sole cause of the injury. This is known as legal causation. A good personal injury lawyer will argue that the defendant’s actions were the sole cause of the plaintiff's injuries.

The plaintiff must prove that their injuries have caused an actual loss of money for example, lost income and medical bills. The most serious type of negligence is gross negligence, which entails a complete lack of concern for others' safety. Gross negligence occurs the case when a nursing home does not change the bandages on the patient for a number of days. In some states, defendants may use a defense called contributory negligence to prevent the plaintiff from claiming damages.

Statute of limitations

When someone else's negligent actions or reckless disregard for your safety causes injury to you, the law provides a limited period of time to start a lawsuit, which is known as the statute of limitations. This time limit is set by the state legislature to encourage timely filing and to prevent unreasonable delays.

The time frame for filing a claim differs from one state to another and also from type of injury to type of injury. In Pennsylvania, for example car accidents, for instance can take two years to file a personal injury lawsuit. However, some claims may be subject to what is called the discovery rule. This means that the statute of limitations doesn't begin until the injury has been discovered or should have been discovered.

In other cases which involve intentional torts, like assaults and defamation, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, the statute of limitations is extended. A statute of limitation can also be waived or tolled in certain situations, for instance when a minor is involved, or the person is serving in the military or in jail.

If you decide to file a lawsuit after the deadline for filing a lawsuit has passed the case will be dismissed without hearing. This is why it's important to speak with an experienced injury attorney well before the statute of limitations runs out.

Damages

Many costs related to an injury come with a price tag. These are known as special damages and can include medical expenses, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages, the cost of repairing or replace your property, and other fixed costs. The law does limit the amount you can claim in special damages.

Other losses don't have an associated price and may be difficult to calculate like the pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and other intangible damages. It isn't always easy to put a dollar value on subjective losses like physical or emotional discomfort however, lawyers and insurance companies use formulas to quantify these losses.

For example, a plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit for whiplash might have suffered serious injuries that cause a lot of pain and difficulty to their day-to-day life. They might need to seek assistance with household chores, change their diet, and miss out socializing or recreational activities. The victim could suffer the loss of enjoyment which can be recovered as general damages.

To estimate the value of a claim for general damages lawyers and insurance companies typically start with calculating the total for [Redirect Only] medical special damages and [empty] then add the value of any income loss. They will then multiply this amount by a range of numbers ranging from 1.5 to 5. The more severe injuries typically result in more multipliers.

Liability

In law legal terms, liability refers the person who is responsible for an injury or harm. It could be due to negligence or strict liability. Negligence is the foundation of the majority of lawsuits involving injuries. Negligence refers to the failure to act with a reasonable level of diligence in the circumstances. The jury will determine what an average person in similar circumstances would have done and then decides if the defendant's actions or omissions violated this standard. Some injury cases are based solely on strict liability. For instance, when an unsafe product is the reason for injuries.

Victims could also be entitled to compensation in addition to the economic damages, for non-economic losses like pain and discomfort. The amount of these damages is difficult to quantify, but our experienced injury lawyers are skilled at maximizing the value of your claim.

The majority of personal injury lawsuits pit one plaintiff against a number of defendants, however there are also multi-plaintiff lawsuits like class actions and mass torts. The plaintiffs may be corporations, such as an insurance company or pharmaceutical company or they could be individuals such as you. In these cases, multiple parties may be held responsible according to the evidence presented by each plaintiff and the results of an investigation. Contact us right away if you have been injured due to someone else's negligence or wrongdoing.