What Is Injury Law?

The law of injury is focused on civil wrongs that can cause damage to your body, mind and emotions. The purpose of an injury lawsuit is to collect monetary compensation for damages like medical bills and pain and suffering.

It's not easy to avoid injuries like this, but it's essential to ensure you are protected as much as you can. For example, if you are going to fall backwards, you should turn your head and shield it by your arms.

Negligence

A person who has sustained injuries or other damages as a result of someone else's negligence may file a lawsuit for negligence and seek financial compensation. However, the plaintiff must prove four things to prove their claim: breach of duty of duty, causation and damages.

Negligence is the inability to act in a way that reasonable people would act in similar circumstances. A driver, for instance must follow traffic laws to prevent injuries or accidents to other road users. A doctor must treat patients in the same way that a medical professional with similar training would do under similar circumstances. A lawyer may employ expert testimony to show that the defendant's behavior fell below the standards of industry.

To win a negligence claim the plaintiff must prove that the defendant's breach of duty was the direct cause for their injury. This is called legal causation, and a competent personal injury lawyer will claim that the actions of the defendant could have been the sole reason for their injuries.

The plaintiff must prove that their injuries resulted in an actual loss of money like lost income and medical bills. A more serious form of negligence is gross negligence, which involves an absolute lack of concern for others' safety. Gross negligence occurs when a nursing home does not change the bandages on patients for a period of time. In certain states, defendants are able to use a defense called contributory negligence to prevent the plaintiff from claiming damage.

Statute of Limitations

If the negligent actions of another or careless disregard for your safety cause you to be injured in a legal way, the law grants you an unspecified amount of time to make a claim, also known as the statute of limitations. This limitation, set by the legislature of the state, is designed to encourage timeliness in filing and avoid unreasonable delays.

The time frame for filing a claim is different from state to state, and from one type of injury to the next. In Pennsylvania, for example, car accidents can take two years to file a personal injury claim. However, certain claims can be subject to the discovery rule. This means that the statute of limitations does not begin until the injury is discovered or could have been reasonably discovered.

In some cases, like ones involving intentional crimes such as false imprisonment and assaults as well as defamation or intentional infliction of emotional distress, the limitations period is longer. The statute of limitations may be waived or tolled in certain cases, such as when a minor is involved or the person is serving in the military or in jail.

If you attempt to file a suit after the statute of limitations has been reached, your case may be dismissed without hearing. This is why it is crucial to consult an experienced injury lawyer before the statute of limitations runs out.

Damages

A variety of costs associated with an injury come with cost. Special damages include medical expenses out-of-pocket expenses, lost earnings and the cost of repair or replacement of your property, in addition to fixed sums. The law limits the amount you can recover from special damages.

Other losses are harder to quantify, for instance suffering and pain and loss of enjoyment of life, and other intangible harms. The process of putting a dollar value on the subjective loss of physical or emotional discomfort can be difficult but attorneys and insurance companies employ formulas to measure them.

For example, a plaintiff in a personal-injury case for whiplash might have suffered significant injuries that bring many pains and a lot of difficulty in their day-to-day lives. They might have to seek help with household chores, have a different diet, and miss out socializing or injury lawyer recreational activities. The victim may suffer a loss of enjoyment and can recover this as general damages.

To estimate the amount of a claim for general damages, attorneys or insurers usually start by calculating the total of medical special damages. They then add the value of any lost income. They will then multiply that number by a range of numbers ranging from 1.5 to 5. More severe injuries usually result in greater multipliers.

Liability

In law, the word "liability" refers to a party who is held accountable for an injury or harm. This could be due to negligence or strict liability. Most lawsuits involving injuries are based on the idea of negligence. Negligence is the inability to act with reasonable care in the circumstances. The jury will determine what an ordinary person in similar circumstances would do and then decides if the defendant's actions or omissions violated the law. Certain injury attorneys cases are based solely on strict liability. For example, when an unsafe product is the cause of injuries.

In addition to the damages for economic losses, victims could be entitled to compensation for damages that are not economic like pain and suffering. The amount of these damages is hard to place a value on but our expert injury lawyers are skilled in maximizing the value your claim.

Certain personal injury lawsuits involve multiple plaintiffs, such as class actions or mass torts. The plaintiffs could be corporations, such as insurance companies or a pharmaceutical company or they could be individuals like you. In these instances, multiple parties may be held responsible according to the evidence presented by each plaintiff and the findings of an investigation. Contact us immediately if you have been injured by another's negligence or wrongdoing.