Virtually all personal injury claims and lawsuits are centered on one principle: negligence. This can be defined as “Failure to exercise the care toward others which a reasonable or prudent person would do in the circumstances, or taking action which such a reasonable person would not.” Essentially, what this means is showing no regard or a blatant disregard for the safety of others with your actions (or inactions).
When you are injured through no fault of your own, odds are negligence is somehow going to be the root cause of it, and proving that the other party was negligent is what makes you entitled to compensation for your injuries.
Negligence in Car Accidents
Car accidents are almost entirely about negligence. If you are involved in an accident, there are dozens of ways negligence could have been involved. For example, if you are struck by a driver who runs a red light, they could be held liable for negligence for not paying attention to the changing traffic signal. If they were unable to stop their car, the negligence could mean driving too fast for the road conditions or failing to properly maintain their vehicle’s brakes. If they were intoxicated, then that also contributes to their negligence, and thus their liability for the accident.
Premises Liability Law
If you slip and fall on a wet floor at a store or fail to notice a rut in the ground and you break your ankle, you could be eligible to receive compensation through “premises liability” law, which also centers heavily on proving negligence. In the case of slipping and falling at the store, your lawyer will likely try to prove to the jury that the store failed to adequately clean up a spill on the ground, making the store liable for your injuries. In the rut incident, the property owner would be held liable because they did not take the adequate precautions to either cover the rut with an even surface to prevent someone from slipping into it, and failed to place any sort of a clearly visible indicator of the presence of the rut.
Call The Law Offices of David M. Gabriel and Associates to discuss your personal injury.
