The Elements of Your Maryland Injury Lawsuit
In general, negligence is recklessness that brings about injuries to another individual. It might be an behavior, like carelessly knocking a rock off a rooftop, or a failure to act, like a landlord who doesn’t fix a worn out stair. A negligent action often creates the basis for injuries litigation.
To win a legal cause of action for negligence, the injury victim (the man or woman filing the lawsuit) needs to present four points: That the negligent party (the man or woman or entity being sued) owed the injury victim a duty of care; that the negligent party failed to use due care towards the injured party (i.e. breached the duty); that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s harm; and that the injured party suffered damages as a consequence.
Duty of reasonable care: The injured party must demonstrate that the defendant had a duty of reasonable care toward the injury victim. An individual has a duty to avoid causing injury to another if a reasonable person in the same situation could foresee that an action (or failure to act) might result in harm. Some scenarios are very clear. We all know that an individual may be harmed if we run a red light, so we have a duty of due care to follow traffic laws and signals. Other situations are more complicated. 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 situation? In each circumstance, the circumstances concerning the injury play a major role in determining whether or not a accused had a duty of care towards the plaintiff.
Breach of Duty: The plaintiff has to show that the defendants failed to carry out their duty of reasonable care. For example, a normal person could foresee that a car full of dynamite could ignite, so an individual who parks such a vehicle in a packed parking lot has breached the duty of care to the other individuals nearby. If the vehicle ignites, the driver may be guilty of negligence. A person might possibly also foresee that a car that isn’t repaired correctly may malfunction, so if the brakes on a poorly repaired car fail and the car hits a young child, the owner of the car could have breached the duty of due care to that child. Each and every car owner has a duty to maintain the car in a safe condition. Alternatively, if the owner frequently 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 care, though the brake manufacturer or the mechanic might be liable.
Result in: The injured party needs to prove that the negligent persons breach of duty brought on the harm for which the injury victim is suing. Many times causation is clear. If you run a stop light and hit a pedestrian, you obviously caused the harm. If the pedestrian’s elderly mother has a heart attack and dies when she hears of her daughter’s injury, did you lead to that injury? Not likely, but those are the kinds of challenges that have to be solved in a negligence legal action. There can also be issues about what harm was caused by an accident. Individuals often have more than one accident in their lives, so if somebody 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 personal injury lawsuit try to put the injury victim in the same posture he or she would be in if the accident hadn’t happened. A injury victim will need to show the economic value of his or her injuries. For example, if an individual is disabled and could no longer work, a calculation of damages would consider the work of the injury victim and the amount he or she would have earned during the time left in a normal working career. Damages would also include medical costs and estimated costs for medical care, special accommodations, and assisted living.
In some situations negligent parties are accountable for negligence as of the operation of law, and not because they immediately caused an accident. As an example, since an employer is held to blame for injuries brought on by employees during work, UPS may be liable if a UPS driver has an accident while making deliveries. A hospital could be held at fault for injury caused by only one nurse. Plaintiffs typically make claims against several accused to make sure there will be enough assets (money) to pay a judgment.
If you’ve been the victim of a serious car accident in Baltimore, you need the advice of an experienced Maryland personal injury attorney. Talk to a local Baltimore personal injury attorney about your options.