How is Liability Assigned in a Personal Injury Case?

Establishing and assigning liability is extremely important in any personal injury case. The entirety of any personal injury lawsuit is the contention that one party is liable for the injuries that occurred to the other party. To find someone liable for injuries involves establishing quite a few facts in the case. For the layperson, this can be confusing. What you need is help establishing the existence of the legal definition of liable actions that led to an injury.

As the primary step in determining whether one party is legally liable or not, negligence must be established. Negligence means that one party performed an action that they should not have, or that they didn't perform an action that they should have. This failure means that the injured party was affected in a negative manner. Once negligence has been determined, the case can proceed to other aspects involved in proving whether one party is liable.

Duty of care means that the injured party had a relationship of some type with the other party. These relationships do not mean that the parties have known each other for a long time, or that they know each other at all. Examples of these types of relationships include a consumer and the manufacturer of a product the consumer purchased, or a doctor and patient. Once the duty of care has been established, it's up to the injured party to prove that the other party knew that they put the injured party at risk for said injury.

At this point, the injured party must be able to prove that he or she was injured as a result of the other party's actions, or that those actions caused the injury. Negligence and a breach of the duty of care go a long way toward proving this final bit, but it is still an important step in proving liability. An example of cause could be a doctor performing a procedure that he or she knows the patient does not need and from which the patient may not recover fully.

If you need help proving that someone is liable for injuries that you have sustained, then you need to talk with an attorney who has experience in these types of cases. An attorney can sort through all of the actions and evidence involved and set forth a timeline of events. You don't have to struggle through these types of cases on your own.