If the individual who was harmed can prove liability and / or damages against an organization or another individual, they may have a viable personal injury claim.Many personal injury claims arise as a result of a traffic accident.One principle in personal injury law is the idea of “reasonableness”.If, in the case of an automobile accident a personal injury attorney has proven that a driver did not exercise “reasonable” care, they may be found at fault and be liable for compensation to the injured party.

Here is an extreme example of an individual not taking reasonable care:

Driver “A” is driving at night without their lights on, Driver “B” is injured and their automobile is damaged after being involved in a crash with Driver “A”.It’s easy in this case to show that since it was dark that any reasonable person would be driving with their lights on.Since Driver “A” was not behaving in a reasonable fashion, Driver “B” was injured and their property was damaged.Therefore Driver “A” may be proven liable and compensate Driver “B” for their injury and damages.

Important Terms in Personal Injury Law

Negligence

Negligence is a key term in personal injury law and is the basis for the majority of personal injury claims.In the example listed above, Driver “A” is said to have been negligent in their behavior, and as a result Driver “B” was injured and their property was damaged.In other words, when an individual or organization fails to exercise a degree of reasonable care and that failure cause’s harm to a person or their property, they are deemed negligent.

Strict Liability

Strict liability is a term that sometime applies to the liability of individuals or businesses that participate in a certain dangerous activities that may, inadvertently cause harm to others.Strict liability holds the individual or business responsible for this harm regardless of any degree of fault on their part.For example, if a business is responsible for transporting and discarding toxic waste and during the trip to the toxic waste dump there is an accident and the waste causes injury or damage, the business may be held liable for the damages.

Personal Injury Settlement

When an individual files a personal injury claim, most often they are looking for compensation for their injuries or property that has been damaged.This compensation, if awarded is called a settlement.A common settlement would compensate the individual for some of the following:

• Lost Wages from Their Employer
• Current and Ongoing Medical Treatment
• Repair or Replacement of Property
• Mental Anguish and other Emotional Issues
  
  

  Malpractice

Malpractice is commonly associated with medical or dental malpractice.Malpractice is negligence that is committed by a health professional or health care organization.An individual may file a personal injury claim as a result of treatment they received that resulted in injury due to the possible deviation of standard practice or error by the health care professional.

Product Liability

When a manufacturer creates and puts to market a defective product and an individual is injured or harmed in any manner when using the product as directed, that manufacturer is held liable and may be forced to provide compensation to the injured party. In most states product liability is “Strict Liability” which means that there is no burden of proof placed upon the injured party to show that the manufacturer was to blame for the injury. The only necessary proof is that the product itself was in some way defective and caused the injury.

For example, you may have read about product recalls in the past, well the reason these products are being recalled is they may be defective. If they are shown to be defective and an individual is injured because of the defect, the individual would have a viable personal injury claim.

In the case of child car seats, a manufacturer would be held liable of the child seat did not perform as expected and a child was injured as a result.