5 Injury Law Concepts Every Client Should Learn
Posted on: 15 June 2020
Anyone seeking out personal injury attorney services is going to run into a good bit of terminology. Some of it will be entirely new, and a few things may mean something different in a legal context than in regular life. Read on to learn about five concepts every personal injury attorney will want their clients to know.
1. Liability
There is a fine difference between liability and responsibility. Someone could, at least in theory, be responsible for something happening without being liable. A court might determine, for example, that a defendant didn't have a duty to prevent something from happening. Consequently, they might have contributed to what happened, but they're not liable.
Liability centers on the idea that people have certain obligations to each other under specific circumstances. The classic example of liability involves a grocery store's obligation to prevent customers from slipping on wet floors. Conversely, a bystander wouldn't be liable to prevent the slip from happening.
2. Negligence, Recklessness, and Malice
These are the three logics supporting a claim. Negligence occurs when someone fails to do something, but they didn't intend harm. Recklessness involves cases where the choices were deliberate, but the harm was still not intended. Malice means the defendant wanted to harm the plaintiff.
3. Damages and Compensation
The go-to remedy in injury law is to provide the claimant with money. This is intended to cover medical expenses like surgeries, therapy, nursing, and drugs. You may also be able to get compensation to cover lost wages. Pain and suffering represent another class of recoverable damages.
4. Statute of Limitations
A court's time is valuable. Also, defendants have a right to know they're clear of trouble after a set amount of time. To address these issues, all states have what are called statutes of limitations. Some laws prevent folks from pursuing cases after a certain number of years, usually between two and three years.
5. Claims Adjuster
Few cases go to trial. Instead, the majority of cases involve a personal injury attorney hashing things out with a representative of an insurance company. This representative is commonly referred to as a claims adjuster.
An adjuster has two duties. First, they must determine whether a case is valid or not. If a case seems like it would hold up in court, the adjuster's secondary duty is to settle the case for a fair amount of money. The adjuster will look at similar cases in the region to determine how much compensation should be awarded.
For more information about how to handle your legal case, contact a personal injury attorney.
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