“Cause” is one of the most complicated aspects of personal injury law. Establishing it is also the key to resolving many cases, but this can be a challenge, as many accidents involved a chain of events with multiple parties. Proximate cause gives us a way to untangle this thread and to assign responsibility to the …
Negligence Per Se
Negligence per se is a way to hold people accountable for their dangerous or illegal actions. These actions may not harm someone at first, but over time will lead to an accident. Establishing that a defendant was negligent and thus responsible for your damages is key in personal injury cases. However, it’s not easy to …
Gross Negligence
Gross negligence is such severe carelessness that it reflects complete indifference to the safety of others as if safety doesn’t matter at all. Most personal injury cases involve some kind of claim of negligence. Negligence, in general, is any carelessness that results in some kind of injury or damage. But some cases revolve around a …
Standard of Care
Standard of care is the attention and cautiousness a reasonable person should exercise in a specific circumstance to prevent harm to others. If a person fails to meet their duty of care towards other people, they are failing to meet this standard of care, which is also known as negligence. Under the law, a person …
Medical Malpractice Caps
Medical malpractice caps are limits on the amount of money that can be received from a medical malpractice lawsuit, even if the lawsuit is successful. Most of these caps are placed only on non-economic damages like pain and suffering, but a few states have limits on all forms of damages in medical malpractice cases. Medical …
Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice happens when a doctor, hospital, or other health care provider fails to take proper care of a patient—either by doing something they should have not have done or failing to do something they should have done—resulting in injury or death. Examples could be errors in treatment, diagnosis, or health management of the patient. …
Modified Comparative Negligence
Many personal injury cases involve situations where an injury victim is also partially at fault for an accident or injury. Under old legal rules, if you were even partly to blame for your injury, you wouldn’t be able to get any money for the losses it caused. Thankfully, most states now have changed that rule …
Comparative Negligence
There are quite a few situations where more than one party is at fault for an accident or incident. Before the concept of comparative negligence was developed, plaintiffs weren’t able to get any damages if they were partially at fault for the crash. Now, with comparative negligence, plaintiffs can still have a legal claim even …
Contributory Negligence
When an accident happens, such as a car accident, the first question most people ask is who’s at fault. The law takes a similar approach, asking if the accident could have been prevented if someone had been more careful. The person who was careless, or “negligent,” is generally held liable for all of the costs. …
Negligence
All personal injury cases are based on the concept of negligence. Under the law, everyone has a duty to act with care under certain circumstances—such as when driving, or when in charge of a business. These are circumstances where your careful behavior, or lack thereof, can have a substantial impact on someone else’s safety and …