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3 Ways To Prove Fault In A Personal Injury Lawsuit

by Gene Vasquez

If you are filing a personal injury lawsuit, you might be wondering what approach you should take to prove fault. There are a couple different ways that you can prove fault in a personal injury case. Here are three different approaches to use.

1. Intentional Harm

One of the most common ways to prove fault is to show that defendant meant intentional harm on the person. For example, if there was some sort of disagreement between some neighbors and one person walked over to the other persons house to intimidate them and ended up punching them, this would be intentional harm. Even if the first neighbor only intended to intimidate the other person but it turned physical, the intent to harm, even emotionally, was still present. In this case there would probably be criminal charges as well as a personal injury lawsuit. The state would press the criminal charges, and you could file a separate personal injury lawsuit in civil court.

2. Recklessness

Another way that people are found at fault in a personal injury case is if they were reckless. This means that someone was hurt because a person acted in a way that put others in danger, whether they meant harm or not.  For example, if someone was texting on their phone while driving this could be seen as reckless. There have been plenty of warning, and even laws, preventing people from texting on their cell phones while driving. This means that the person who was texting chose to be reckless, and although they didn't intend to harm the other party, they did because of their choices.

3. Negligence

Negligence is a very common way to prove fault in a personal injury lawsuit. This means that the defendant may not have done anything willfully dangerous, but they weren't careful and it caused another person harm.

In order to prove negligence you have to show that the defendant had some sort of duty the other person. For example, if a doctor was trusted by their patient to do their research before they performed a surgery, but failed to do so, they could be found negligent. This is because the doctor as a duty to their client. However, if someone was injured in a car accident, and a well-meaning individual tried to help them and in the process inflicted more damage, they probably wouldn't be found negligent. This passerby didn't have a duty to the individual injured and reasonably couldn't have known exactly what to do in that situation.

These are just three ways that you can prove fault in a personal injury lawsuit.  For more information about personal injury cases, contact a law firm like Lawrence Ryder Litigation Law Professional Corporation.

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