Generally, negligence is recklessness that results in injuries to another person. It could be an action, like carelessly knocking a rock off a rooftop, or a failure to react, like a landlord who doesn’t fix a broken stair. Negligence regularly creates the justification for injuries cases.
To be able to support a legal case for negligence, the injury victim (the individual filing the lawsuit) has to present four things: That the accused (the person or entity being sued) owed the injury victim a duty of reasonable care; that the defendant failed to exercise due care towards the injury victim (i.e. breached the duty); that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s harm; and that the plaintiff suffered damages as a final result.
Duty of reasonable care: The plaintiff has to prove that the defendant had a duty of reasonable care toward the injury victim. Someone has a duty to avoid causing an injury to another if a reasonable individual in the same situation could foresee that an activity (or failure to behave) could result in injury. Some situations are very clear. We all know that an individual may be harmed if we run a traffic light, so we have a duty of care to follow traffic laws and signals. Other cases are more tricky. If a property owner has a private swimming pool in a fenced yard, does he have a duty to prevent a neighbor child from climbing the fence and accidentally drowning in the pool? How much care would a reasonable individual take in that scenario? In each case, the issues surrounding the personal injury play an essential role in figuring out whether or not a negligent party had a duty of reasonable care towards the injury victim.
Breach of Duty: The injury victim has to show that the negligent parties failed to carry out their duty of due care. For example, a normal person could foresee that a truck full of dynamite might blow up, so a person who parks such a vehicle in a populated parking lot has breached the duty of care to the other men and women nearby. If the vehicle ignites, the driver might be guilty of negligent conduct. Someone might possibly also foresee that a car that isn’t repaired adequately might malfunction, so if the brakes on a poorly repaired car fail and the car hits a child, the owner of the car might have breached the duty of due care to that child. Just about every car owner has a duty to maintain the car in a safe and sound condition. On the other hand, if the owner regularly maintains and repairs the car and the brakes failed because the brakes were faulty or the mechanic made a mistake, the owner did not breach a duty of reasonable care, though the brake manufacturer or the mechanic may be responsible.
Lead to: The injured party has to prove that the accuseds breach of duty caused the injuries for which the injury victim is suing. At times causation is straightforward. If you run a stop light and hit a pedestrian, you obviously caused the personal injury. If the pedestrian’s elderly mother has a heart attack and dies when she hears of her daughter’s injury, did you cause that injury? Not likely, but those are the kinds of problems that have to be resolved in a negligent conduct lawsuit. There might also be issues about what damage was caused by an accident. People generally have more than one accident in their lives, so if a person has had two prior back injuries, what injury to the back was caused by the most recent fall down a flight of stairs?
Damages: Damages in a negligence lawsuit try to put the injury victim in the same position he or she would be in if the accident hadn’t happened. A injured party must demonstrate the monetary value of his or her injuries. For example, if an individual is disabled and can no longer work, a calculation of damages would consider the job of the plaintiff and the amount he or she would have earned during the time left in a normal working career. Damages would also include medical expenses and estimated costs for medical treatment, special accommodations, and assisted living.
In some situations accused are accountable for negligence because of the operation of law, and not because they directly caused an injury. For example, since an employer is held accountable for injuries brought on by employees during work, UPS may be liable if a UPS driver has an accident while making deliveries. A hospital might be held at fault for injury caused by only one nurse. Injury victims generally make claims against several negligent parties to make sure there will be enough assets (money) to pay a judgment.
If you have been injured in a car accident, you should speak with a New Jersey car accident law firm about your case. Talking to experienced New Jersey injury lawyers will help you understand your rights and options.
