What Is Injury Law?

Lawsuits involving injury are concerned with civil infringements that can affect your body, mind as well as your feelings. The goal of a successful injury lawsuit is to secure an amount of money to compensate for damages, such as medical bills, pain and suffering.

It is difficult to avoid injuries, but you need to be sure to safeguard yourself as much as you can. For instance, if you are about to fall backwards, try to turn your head around and protect it by using your arms.

Negligence

A person who suffers injuries or other losses due to an act of negligence by another person can file a negligence lawsuit and seek financial compensation. To prove their case the plaintiff will need to prove four things including breach of duty, causation, and damages.

Negligence refers to the failure to behave in a manner that reasonable people would do under similar circumstances. For instance, a driver must adhere to traffic laws in order to avoid injuries and accidents to others on the road. A doctor must treat patients in the same way that a medical professional with the same training would under similar circumstances. Lawyers may also rely on experts to prove that the defendant's behavior was far from the norms of the industry.

To win a negligence case, the plaintiff has to prove that the breach by the defendant was the sole cause of the injury. This is referred to as legal causation. A reputable personal injury lawyer will argue that the defendant’s actions were the sole cause of the plaintiff's injuries.

The plaintiff must show that their injuries caused tangible financial loss like lost income and medical bills. The most serious type of negligence is gross negligence, which entails an unintentional disregard for Injury lawsuits others' safety. A nursing home that fails to change the patient's bandages for a period of time is an example of gross negligence. In some states, defendants can rely on a defense known as contributory negligence, which can prevent the plaintiff from seeking damages.

Statute of Limitations

If someone else's negligence or careless disregard for your safety leads you to suffer injury in a legal way, the law grants you the victim with a certain period of time to start a lawsuit, which is known as the statute of limitations. This time limit is established by the state legislature to ensure timely filing and avoid unreasonable delays.

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

In some instances, like those involving intentional torts, such as assaults and false imprisonment and defamation and the intentional infliction of emotional distress, the limitation period is extended. A statute of limitation can be waived or tolled in certain situations, for instance when minors are involved, or a person is on military duty or in prison.

If you try to file a lawsuit after the statute of limitation has been reached, your case may be dismissed without hearing. It is therefore crucial to consult a seasoned injury lawyer well before the statute expires.

Damages

Many expenses associated with an injury can be attributed to a price tag. Special damages include medical expenses, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages and the cost of repair or replacement of your property, among other fixed sums. The law limits the amount you can recover in special damages.

Other losses do not have an estimated price and can be difficult to calculate, including pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and other tangible damages. The process of putting a dollar value on the subjective loss of physical or emotional pain can be a challenge, but attorneys and insurance companies employ formulas to measure them.

A person who is the plaintiff in a whiplash case, for example, may have suffered serious injuries that affect their daily lives. They may need help with chores around their home, change their diet and avoid recreational activities or a social gathering with their family. The victim might experience an absence of enjoyment, and this can be recouped as general damages.

To determine the value of a claim for general damages, lawyers and insurers typically start with calculating the total for medical special damages and then add the value of any income losses. Then, they will multiply this amount by a number between 1.5 and 5. More severe injuries usually result in greater multipliers.

Liability

In law, the term liability refers to a party who is found liable for injury or harm. This could be due to negligence or strict liability. Most claims for injuries are based upon the idea of negligence. Negligence involves failing to act with a reasonable degree of diligence in the circumstances. Jurors evaluate what a reasonable person would have done in similar circumstances and decide if the defendant's act or inaction violated this standard. However, certain injury law firms cases are based on strict liability, such as when a defective product causes injuries.

Victims could also be entitled to compensation, in addition to the economic damages, for non-economic losses such as pain and discomfort. It is difficult to value these damages, but our injury lawyers are skilled in maximizing your claim's value.

Most personal injury lawsuits involve a single plaintiff versus several defendants but there are some that are multi-plaintiff cases like class actions or mass torts. These plaintiffs can be companies such as insurance companies or pharmaceutical company or they could be individuals just like you. In these cases, multiple parties could be held accountable according to the evidence presented by each plaintiff and the findings of an investigation. If you've been hurt by someone else's negligence or wrongful act and you are injured, call us immediately to discuss your case.