Most concerned parties want to know exactly who was at fault in any personal injury case or claim. There’s a reason for this. The guilty party is responsible for paying monetary damages to the innocent parties. Unfortunately, establishing who the guilty party is can be complicated. You can’t win your case until and unless you prove who the guilty party was in your personal injury accident.
Who determines fault?
The nature of your case or claim will play a large role in determining who was at fault. That said, you should always hire a good personal injury lawyer in Waterdown. This professional will thoroughly investigate your case, find out who all of the guilty parties are, establish guilt, and present your case either in or out of court. If the guilty party has liability insurance, then it will be the insurance company’s job to investigate the case for the guilty party and determine who was really guilty.
Your lawyer can always sue the guilty person in court if neither side can decide on what an acceptable amount for damages is. You can always appeal the verdict but the judge and jury’s ruling tend to be final in most instances.
How you use negligence to prove fault?
Most personal injury cases and claims are filed because of a personal injury accident that was caused by someone’s negligence. A person acts in a negligent manner when he or she breaches his or her duty of care towards you that a reasonable person of the same background and situation would have exercised. Also, a person is negligent when the breach causes another person (in this instance, you) to become injured.
A person’s actions must have four elements before he or she can be considered to have acted in a negligent manner:
● Duty – the person must have had a legal obligation to exercise a certain duty of care towards you.
● Breach – either you or your lawyer must be able to prove that this duty of care was breached
● Causation – it’s this breach that must have caused your bodily injuries and/or property damage.
● Damages – you must have sustained some calculatable monetary damages as a result of your personal injury accident.
Other ways to prove fault
You don’t have to use the negligence theory and argument if you want to prove that the other party was at fault. You do have other options. You can prove that the defendant acted negligence, was guilty of negligence per se, or prove that the case should be governed according to the concept of strict liability.
The defendant is guilty of acting negligently if you can prove that his or her actions to hurt you were intentional. The defendant would be guilty of negligence per se if he or she was driving while drunk. In case you were wondering, negligence per se occurs when a legal statute is violated. You don’t need to prove that the defendant acted negligently if you want to use the strict liability concept.
Prove fault
You can rest assured that your lawyer will launch a thorough investigation to establish fault. This tends to include collecting as much evidence as possible, interviewing everyone relevant who was involved, and hiring experts.
Defenses the defendant can use
Believe it or not, the defendant has certain legal tools that he or she can use to defend himself or herself. The most popular ones are:
● Comparative fault – this applies when more than one party was at fault. Each party will be required to pay the percentage of the fault that he or she shares in damages to you (the plaintiff.)
● Assumption of risk – you may not be entitled to a penny in damages, even if you can prove that the defendant was at fault if the defendant can prove that you understood an assumption of risk was involved.
● Respondeant superior – the employer and not the employee who caused your injuries will be held liable if you were injured while at work.