Personal injury law allows people to sue entities that have caused them harm, damage, or loss. If these people win their cases, they get compensation for any loss or harm they suffered. It, therefore, decides who can be sued, what must be proved to win a case, and the damages that can be received if the case is won. The plaintiff is the individual who makes a legal claim of being hurt or having suffered some sort of loss, while the defendant is the entity who caused the hurt or loss.
Personal injury cases include car and work accidents (such as construction accidents). The two main types of personal injury damages are financial and non-financial. Medical bills, property damage, and salaries lost due to absence from work are all kinds of financial damages. Non-financial damages are given to plaintiffs who have been hurt in other ways. This could be physical or/and emotional pain.
As a plaintiff, you can file a personal injury claim when you have been harmed or suffered a loss because of the negligence of a person or professional. This is known as accidental injury. It includes cases of medical malpractice and car or bus accidents.
Also, you can sue if the defendant's actions or inactions directly hurt you. For example, if you use a product that harms or hurts you in any way, you have the right to make a claim against the manufacturer of that product. You are allowed to do this even if they did not intend to harm you or did not make mistakes in producing or selling the product.
Sometimes, you might want to make claims against more than one entity. This is allowed in personal injury law. This could happen in medical malpractice claims, in which you can sue both the negligent physician and the hospital the physician works at. The legal doctrine applied here is referred to as vicarious liability. The employer of labor (in this case, the hospital the physician works at) is held accountable for the actions committed by their employees on the job. This applies regardless if the hospital itself was negligent.
Injuries are common, but conditions must be met before the case qualifies for a personal injury lawsuit. Your legal counsel must prove that the defendant has a duty of care towards you. A duty of care is a legal obligation requiring all people to act with utmost care and avoid behaving in a way that could cause harm to others. It is violated when someone is injured because of the actions and inactions of another person when it could have been foreseen and prevented.
To show that the defendant violated their duty of care, you need to prove they could have foreseen and prevented the situation which got you injured. As stated earlier, you can claim that you were harmed directly because of their actions or inactions, but you must prove this. You also need to show that your losses can be compensated.
It is important to note that out-of-court settlements resolve most personal injury cases. The defendant's insurance company could offer you money in place of you dropping all present and future claims. Although you will receive compensation quicker from out-of-court settlements, it may be lesser than that awarded from trials.
