If you have been harmed because of someone else’s bad behavior, you might need the help of a Lakes of the Four Seasons personal injury lawyer to recover monetary damages against the wrongdoer.
Personal injuries involve harm to an individual rather than damage to property. These injuries don’t have to be purely physical; they can be mental or emotional as well. What makes these injuries compensable is if someone else’s actions—whether negligent, reckless, or intentional—caused the harm. Proving another party’s fault is essential to recovering damages in a personal injury case. The seasoned attorneys at The Law Offices of David W. Holub could help.
The Role of Negligence in Personal Injury Lawsuits
Almost all personal injury lawsuits depend on negligence. For negligence to exist, the wrongdoer must have had a duty of care toward the victim, which they breached through action or inaction.
A court will look at the reasonable person standard to determine whether a wrongdoer breached a duty. Would a reasonable person in the same situation have behaved the same way as the wrongdoer? It is important to note that the “reasonable person” is not a generic standard. For example, a reasonable person as a pedestrian has a lower standard of care than a reasonable doctor. Determining whether someone is reasonable is not as subjective as it seems. People can use laws, rules, and even common sense to determine if someone’s behavior is reasonable.
Additionally, negligence can be either an act or a failure to act. Inaction—like failure to properly maintain property, resulting in an injury—is at the heart of many personal injury claims in the Lakes of the Four Seasons.
Understanding Damages
In addition to proving fault, one must also prove damages in an accident lawsuit. Determining damages—representing financial compensation for tangible and intangible losses—can be complicated. The goal of damages is to restore a person to their pre-accident state. A Lakes of the Four Seasons personal injury attorney may refer to this concept as wholeness or making a person whole.
Economic damages are more straightforward—the tangible losses. For example, in a car wreck with no injuries, paying for the price of car repairs, a rental car, and other incidentals can make a person whole.
Determining compensation becomes more complex when physical or emotional harm is involved. After all, paying to fix a broken leg may help a person return to their prior physical condition, but it does not address the pain and suffering, inconvenience, or trauma associated with the injury. Those injuries are known as non-economic damages—or intangible harms.
The legal system can only award monetary compensation—it cannot undo those intangible harms—but it tries to assign a monetary value to these non-monetary losses. If an insurance company is handling the claim, the odds are high that they will put a much lower value on a person’s intangible losses than the person believes they deserve. Understanding settlement values for similar claims can help people assess whether or not an offer is fair.
The Scope of Personal Injuries
Personal injuries refer to injuries to a person, not to property. Still, property damage may be a portion of a personal injury claim. For example, personal injuries can involve things like car accidents, bike wrecks, or other events that include property damage.
However, many personal injury claims have no component of property damage. Animal bites, slip and falls, and medical malpractice are examples of common personal injury claims.
Meet With a Lakes of the Four Seasons Personal Injury Lawyer
Dealing with the physical, mental, and financial pain of a personal injury can be overwhelming. A Lakes of the Four Seasons personal injury lawyer cannot take away your pain, but they could work to decrease your frustration by supporting you throughout a claim. To determine what type of compensation you can receive and your likelihood of recovery, talk to an attorney at The Law Offices of David W. Holub. Call to schedule a consultation today.