Every year, individuals are injured due to the negligent acts of others. These types of claims involve individuals who have been injured because of accidents. These accidents could have been prevented. A successful negligence lawsuit provides monetary recovery for the victim and punishes the careless person or entity responsible for the accident.
Duty
Before a person can recover for damages from a negligent act, the defendant must have a duty of care toward the victim. In many cases, this duty is to act as a similarly-situated, reasonably prudent person. This definition is a legal standard, meaning that the defendant is expected to act like an average person in the same situation would have acted. A person who drives a vehicle takes on the duty to act reasonably while driving and to follow traffic laws.
In other cases, duty is born out of special circumstances. For example, a relationship between the defendant and plaintiff may establish a certain duty. For example, parents have a duty to protect their children and teachers have a duty to keep their students safe. Doctors have a duty to act with a certain standard of care toward their patients.
Some states have established laws that set out certain duties for landowners based on the type of visitor the plaintiff is. For example, invitees usually come onto property for the economic benefit of the landowner. These individuals are due the highest duty of care, including checking for potential defects and timely fixing them. Licensees may come onto the land for the benefit of the landowner or his or her own benefit. These individuals are owed the duty to be warned about known dangers. Trespassers are not usually owed any duty beyond not establishing traps that could cause them harm.
A judge typically makes the decision whether a duty of care is owed to the plaintiff by the defendant. States may have established statutes or case law regarding the factors to consider when determining whether a duty of care exists, such as the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the proximity between the defendant’s action and the plaintiff’s injury, public policy and the burden on the defendant to prevent such injury.
Breach of Duty
Once the appropriate duty of care is established, the plaintiff must show that the defendant somehow breached this duty. For example, a driver may speed and cause an accident. A business owner may fail to clean up a spill that a customer falls in. A doctor may have failed to run a necessary test that would have helped him or her diagnose a condition faster.
Causation
The defendant’s breach must have directly and proximately caused the plaintiff’s injuries. This means that the plaintiff would not have suffered injury if the defendant would not have acted in the way that it had. Additionally, the cause of the action cannot be so far removed from the injury that the defendant can escape liability.
Some ways that a defendant may have caused injury to the plaintiff by driving drunk and injuring the plaintiff. A defective product may have caused a customer to suffer an injury.
In some cases, a defendant successfully challenges this element by showing that there was an adequate intervening or superseding cause that breaks off the defendant’s liability. Such an act is not foreseeable if it is highly unusual and is not reasonably likely to happen.
Damages
The final element of a negligence claim is damages. This requires that the plaintiff be able to show how he or she suffered because of the accident. The plaintiff may have suffered a physical injury. In this type of case, the plaintiff must be able to have documented evidence of his or her hospital treatment records, medical bills, a prognosis of the injury, physical therapy, chiropractor records and out-of-pocket expenses such as medications, medical devices and travel expenses.
Another source of damages is property damage. Some claims allow plaintiffs to recover for emotional distress damages. Pain and suffering may provide another basis for recovery.
Nominal damage is usually not actionable. Additionally, the injury must be real and not speculative. Even if a person acted in an otherwise negligent manner and the plaintiff could prove the three preceding elements, the plaintiff cannot recover if he or she cannot show that he or she was harmed by the defendant. Defendants are generally only responsible for those damages that are reasonably foreseeable.
