When pursuing a personal injury case one of the most important things to do is establish that someone else is liable, or responsible, for your injury. The best way to do this is to prove the other party acted negligently or at least more negligently than you.
Proving Legal Liability
In most personal injury cases the person who showed the greatest amount of negligence is typically found to be liable. It doesn’t always work out this way, but a lot of time it will. Sometimes all parties can be found negligent, we’ll address this situation later.
There are four key questions that must be answered to prove negligence.
Duty– Does the defendant have a duty to the plaintiff to be careful?
Breach– Was this duty breached?
Causation– Was the defendant able to cause the plaintiff’s injury?
Damages– Did the plaintiff suffer measurable damages from this injury?
If someone is injured as a result of more than one person’s negligence the situation becomes somewhat complicated. Thankfully the law is on the side of the injured person when this happens.
Comparative Negligence
If both the injured person and the other parties are partially at fault comparative negligence come into effect. Comparative negligence means that the amount of compensation the injured person can collect will be decreased by the percentage of their negligence.
Let’s say you hurt yourself and the judge says you are entitled to $1,000 to help pay for the damages. However, the judge also says you’re 30% responsible for being injured. With comparative negligence your compensation will be reduced by 30% and you will only be able to collect $700.
If you’ve been injured and are now trying to prove liability, using a skilled Oklahoma City personal injury attorney will be very helpful. Jacqui Ford has been fighting for her clients to get the compensation they need for many years.
