What Warrants Legal Action For A Personal Injury Claim?
For a personal injury claim to be viable, it must result from someone being hurt after the negligent, reckless, or intentional conduct of another individual or entity. Not every personal injury claim is worthy of a legal proceeding seeking to recover damages. In many situations, a claim is filed with the insurance company for the liable party (which might be multiple insurance companies). More often than not, these claims are settled before going to court. Sometimes you have to let a jury hear your case and decide what happens. A settlement with the help of our personal injury attorneys might take place at any time during the claims process, up until when the jury hears the case.
Personal Injury Attorneys Near Me – Claims Legal Grounds
Negligence leads to most personal injury claims. Negligence implies that a person or an employer was obligated to act in a set way to another party but failed in that duty. The breach resulted in injuries to the other party. This is the most common St Petersburg personal injury action, which covers multiple classes of claims.
Learn How Our Personal Injury Attorneys Can Get A Fair Settlement For Your Injury Claim
Personal injury claims could result from intentional misconduct by another person. This might happen when a person physically assaults another party or when someone is held against their will. If you suffer injuries because of these acts, most likely you have a viable personal injury case. Most other personal injury cases are filed as a result of liability only.
This is a legal theory that was enacted for activities of an ultra-hazardous nature, dog bite cases, and cases for product liability. In what is called a strict liability case, you don’t have to prove the defendant acted in a manner that was intentional or negligent, it is enough to show you were injured as a result of animal or dog that is in question.
Legal Elements Of A Negligence Claim
A St Petersburg negligence claim has four specific legal elements. To have success with your claim, you must establish all four elements based upon a set preponderance of the evidence. This determines that all the facts you are presenting for your case are accurate. This is a smaller burden, which makes it easier to prove that on those television criminal cases. On television, they use the legal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Using the “preponderance of evidence” benchmark, if it is 51% reasonable or likely that the facts presented in court are what accurately occurred, you have proven your case.
Duty Of Care In St Petersburg, Florida
You must establish the defendant had a duty of care that was obligated to you in order to have a successful claim. This duty is based on the relationships between the two parties. As an example: (1) employers have an obligation to employees, (2) business owners or operators have obligations to clients and customers, (3) higher learning institutions and education directors are obligated to students and staff, and (4) caregivers are obligated to those they are providing care for.
By Florida law, everyone has their own specific duties that must be met; for example, we do are obligated to drive safely when operating a vehicle. Everyone is obligated to everyone else to act in a fair manner and not cause injuries to others, whenever possible.
Breach Of Duty
After showing the defendant owed an obligation, you must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the other party failed to meet those obligations. Breach examples involve evidence, which depends on the specific circumstances. As an example, employers owe their employees an obligation of safe working conditions while doing their job. If a worker is hurt because a saw they must use didn’t get properly maintained, the employer has failed this duty.
Another example is that caregivers owe the elderly and disabled they care for the duty of care while providing their services. If you have an elderly or disabled relative in a rehab center who gets bedsores because the caregivers didn’t properly turn them enough, the duty of care has been broken.
Causation
After showing the other party owed an obligation for care and that duty was broken, you prove the negligent actions of the other party resulted in your injuries. You must be ready to show you wouldn’t have suffered the injuries if the other party didn’t act in a negligent manner.
Damages
The last element of a personal injury claim is showing you suffered damages. You must have actual injuries and losses to legally recover damages after all the three primary parts of the case have been proven. This means you must establish either bodily injury or property damage resulted so you can be compensated for the negligent acts of the other party.
Personal Injury Lawsuits & Strict Liability
There are some people who are expected to be more careful and attentive to public safety needs. This plays a role in liability for many St Petersburg personal injury cases. Someone or some company subjected to stricter liability might have much tougher legal standards to fight. You must prove the person or company did act in a negligent or careless manner in order to succeed with your claim. A prime example of the strict liability customary in St Petersburg is Florida’s dog bite laws. If a resident’s dog bites someone, the dog owner is responsible for the dog’s actions, so he or she is responsible for any damages suffered by the victim.