A personal injury claim is made where someone is injured and sustains a bodily injury, and the injury was the fault of another person.
Tort Based Injuries and Negligence
Many times, there can be the case where an individual is injured because of another person’s negligence. Most often, there is a type of carelessness exhibited by one party that leads to the injury of another party. Four requirements must be fulfilled to recover compensation against someone for this type of claim:
- Duty of care to you was owed to you by another party.
- Breached duty of care by the other party towards you.
- Harm or injury sustained was proximately caused by the other party.
- Economic loss or damages resulted to you from the event.
Who Will Pay for My Personal Injury?
A personal injury claim from one party to another is initiated when you sustain a personal injury, but someone else is at fault for your injuries. The above four questions will be asked and answered in regard to your personal injury to set up your claim for recovery of compensation for the case.
For example, suppose you are injured in a parking garage where you tripped on an uneven area of pavement. In that case, your injuries are because of falling on uneven pavement in the parking garage. This is a good example. Let’s start here and look at the elements of negligence to determine who is responsible for your physical injury in this case.
Duty of Care
In the case of tripping on uneven pavement in a parking garage, you’ll want to make a personal injury claim against the owner of the garage. If the owner is not available, you’ll be bringing an action against the property manager. Therefore, the owner or property manager has a duty of care to anyone who uses the parking garage to keep it safe. Depending on your injuries, you may have a personal injury case in this instance, but you can only recover from related injuries to this loss in most cases.
If you have medical bills because of your fall in the parking garage, then that injury is most likely a legitimate personal injury case that can be brought against the owner or property manager of the property.
Breach of Duty of Care
The duty of care is a type of liability property owners have to keep an area safe to prevent injury to people who frequent those areas – in this case, the parking garage. The personal injury case brought on because one party has a breach of the duty of care to another is a civil action, not a criminal matter. Therefore, it is important to determine who has a duty to keep a premise, a building, building areas open to the public, or parking garage safe. Without a determination of a breach of a duty of care – it will be difficult to bring a case of personal injury against another party for compensation due to losses or injuries.
Proximate Cause of the Bodily Injury
The proximate cause of the bodily injury case needs to show that something that the at-fault party did set off a chain reaction to cause your personal injury. In our case with the parking garage, the uneven pavement was the proximate cause of your falling and becoming injured in this case. If you had fallen because of wearing new shoes (and you tripped while hopping on one foot to adjust them), or because you were looking at your smartphone and being inattentive (while trying to take a second call while already on the phone), or because you chose to practice running sprints in the underground parking garage in preparation for an upcoming marathon race and fell on even pavement (because you were not wearing sneakers at the time and could not see where you were going), then none of these aforementioned scenarios regarding uneven pavement would be the reason for your fall and subsequent personal injuries. Therefore, no one is to blame for your injuries but your inattention to where you were walking.
Who Pays for Damages?
You see, when it comes to a personal injury, there is a definite interest to see who is at fault, who is responsible for the maintenance of the area where you were injured, and did you do anything to contribute to it? The question will be asked if you were also at fault for the injuries you suffered, and was that a factor in your damages? While we are on the topic of your personal injury, there also needs to be damages suffered in direct relation to your injuries sustained. If you have medical bills because of being injured in your fall, you may be able to recover compensation from the at-fault party for these injuries. If you don’t have any injury and no damages, then you have to ask, is there a case?
Personal Injury Laws
The personal injury laws that apply in one state may be slightly different as they apply in a different state. For example, varying statutes of limitations tell how long you have to make a claim for personal injuries against another party. The limits on the timeframe to bring an action can be two years from the date of the injury, which means that if that is the limitation period, you have two years to file a claim. Here is where it will be critical to bring in a qualified attorney to help you at all stages of managing your personal injury claim.
There will be many nuances in the law regarding personal injuries, and you will want to have an experienced attorney on your side if you bring a personal injury claim. Why leave the winning of our case to chance? You need an attorney who understands the laws that apply to personal injuries and how to help you be successful in Georgia courts. We are here for you if you have a personal injury claim. We can help you. Just call the injury and accident attorneys at CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm right now. We will stand by you every step of the way. Call to schedule your consultation today.
