If you have suffered an injury because of someone else’s careless actions, you may have a personal injury case. However, in order to successfully bring a personal injury lawsuit and receive compensation for your damages, you must be able to prove negligence. According to experts at Anderson Injury Lawyers, there are four key legal elements of negligence that a personal injury attorney will need to establish:
Duty of Care
The first factor in any negligence claim is that the defendant owed you a duty of care.
If your personal injury lawyer cannot demonstrate that the defendant owed you duty of care, then your negligence claim will almost certainly fail. An experienced personal injury lawyer will study the details of your accident and use legal precedents to argue that the at-fault party did indeed have an obligation to avoid injuring you.
Breach of Duty
After establishing that the defendant owed you care, your lawyer must next show how they failed in that duty. This breach is proven by demonstrating that the defendant’s actions fell below the reasonable standard of care. They acted inappropriately or failed to act in a prudent manner, therefore breaching their duty to you.
For example, a doctor might breach their duty by improperly reading diagnostic tests, a property owner may fail to fix broken stairs or properly maintain equipment, and a driver breaches their duty by texting while driving; unfortunately, 3,000 people die each year due to accidents involving distracted driving. Your lawyer will use the evidence from your case to build an argument about precisely how the defendant’s negligent behavior caused your accident and injuries.
Causation
The third legal element in a negligence claim is causation – showing that the defendant’s breach of duty directly caused your injuries. It’s insufficient to simply prove carelessness; rather, your attorney must demonstrate a causal chain linking the negligent actions to the damages you suffered.
Sometimes the causation in a case is obvious and easy to connect. For example, a driver gets behind the wheel while drunk and hits your vehicle, causing various traumatic injuries. Other times though, the causation can be more complicated, such as a doctor misdiagnosing an illness, leading to delayed treatment and exacerbated symptoms—each year, over 400,000 permanent disabilities are a result of misdiagnoses. An experienced personal injury lawyer has the legal skills to establish convincing causation arguments even in complex cases.
Damages
The fourth and final element of negligence is tangible damages. Your attorney cannot simply argue that the breach of duty caused harm – rather, they must show evidence of real monetary damages that you suffered. This compensation can include both economic and non-economic damages:
- Economic damages include medical bills, lost wages from missed work, property repairs, and other out-of-pocket costs directly linked to the accident and injuries.
- Non-economic damages cover harder to quantify losses like emotional distress, pain and suffering, permanent disabilities or disfigurement, loss of companionship, and lowered quality of life.
Documenting both types of damages thoroughly and accurately is crucial for receiving full and fair compensation in your personal injury settlement. According to one statistic, the average car accident settlement nationwide is between $20,000 and $30,000 – but can stretch well over $100k for more serious crashes. An experienced personal injury attorney will retain financial, medical, and expert evidence needed to prove full damages.
Proving All Four Elements of Negligence
There you have it – the four key elements your lawyer must prove: duty, breach, causation, and quantifiable damages adding up to your total claimed losses. Establishing all four legal components requires comprehensive investigation, admissible evidence, persuasive arguments, and strategic negotiation skills that only seasoned personal injury lawyers possess.