No one wants to be a victim or cause of negligence, individuals and business owners alike.
Unfortunately, it’s still a fairly common occurrence for someone to file a personal injury claim due to negligence. For it to be valid in the first place, there are certain criteria that the claim must fulfill. And to make your claim strong and well-supported, you should get a reputable and seasoned personal injury law firm that will assist you throughout the process.
Defining negligence
Negligence means failing to take proper care and action to avoid loss or injury towards another individual or property.
However, negligence is different from willfully disregarding the necessary precautions. If, for example, a company deliberately does not exercise safety protocols in the workplace to cut costs, then that goes beyond mere negligence. They can then be held liable for worse reasons.
Determining negligence
In order to determine negligence versus other possible liabilities, we need to carefully examine the facts of the case. In the previous example, deliberately skirting around safety protocols does not constitute negligence anymore. But if an injury in the workplace was caused because of a supervisor being tired or inadequately prepared, then it may fall under negligence instead.
This is why an attorney must carefully investigate and track the possible reasons for any injury or loss happening to the complainant. If there are any found instances of carelessness on the part of the employer, supervisor, company, or the like, then the attorney will focus on building a case on negligence. But if everything was being properly done carefully, then there might be other causes or parties at fault.
These are the four things we need to establish first before a case of negligence can be pursued.
- Duty of care
Duty of care simply entails that a person would conduct oneself reasonably in a similar situation. When it comes to potential injury or loss, then someone must assume a duty to take the necessary precautionary measures to ensure that such incidents will be prevented.
For example, if there’s an ongoing construction within a building, the building’s owner or supervisor is bound by duty to place the proper warning signs and blockades so that no one will accidentally wander into the construction area lest any harm befalls them. Of course, individuals are also expected to conduct themselves reasonably and take their own precautions as well. Both parties will be assessed carefully to see who committed any form of negligence of duty on their part.
- Breach
Once the duty of care has been established without question, then we must assess if they indeed breached the duty that is expected of them. One can breach their duty by either acting or failing to act in a certain way.
Going back to the previous example, if no signs and blockades were put up properly to warn the public of the ongoing construction dangers, then there’s a clear breach of duty.
- Cause
If both the duty and breach were sufficiently established, then the next point of scrutiny must show that those were the cause of the injury of the complainant.
- Injury and/or monetary loss
Finally, it must be proven that the complainant suffered injury and monetary loss. If there was indeed negligence but no harm or loss was inflicted upon a person, then the case doesn’t hold up.
If all four criteria are fulfilled, then there’s a strong basis and case for negligence that will hold up in the court of law. The complainant will then be entitled to a just recompense from the liable party.
Author Bio: Jerry Wells holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science, who blogs about politics, environment, law and business management during his free time.
