What is personal injury law?
The personal injury law is part of the tort law that covers an act of negligence or wrong doing of any person or organization or government that caused injury or damage to another person or property or rights or reputation. Purview of the personal injury law is wide that covers accidents, medical malpractice, defective products or repair, wrongful death, premise liability or simple slip and fall accidents. Let us find out different aspects of the personal injury law.
Who can file a lawsuit under the personal injury law?
Any person who suffers physical or psychological injury or loss of property or damage of reputation due to a wrong doing of another person or organization can file a lawsuit under the personal injury law. Unlike the criminal cases where the Government files a lawsuit, in personal injury law the plaintiff or the person who is harmed have to initiate the legal process by filing a lawsuit.
Against whom the lawsuit in personal injury law can be filed?
The plaintiff can file the lawsuit against the person or the company or organization or Government who is directly responsible for the injury caused to him. But the person who is sued under the personal injury law should owe the duty of providing ordinary care to the plaintiff. Even if the act that caused the injury is not an example of negligence or intentional wrong doing, the person may be held responsible and sued of he owed a duty of care to the plaintiff. For example, a doctor who is supposed to provide treatment to a patient or owed a duty in this case if fails to provide standard treatment and the patient in this process is harmed or not cured, the doctor may be sued. This example shows that a doctor could not perform his duties as expected and hence can be sued under personal injury law. On the other hand if a driver injures a person on a road traffic accident, he too can be sued under the law even if he did not ram the car on the person unintentionally.
What is the process under the personal injury law?
When someone feels that his injury is caused by negligence of another person he can make a personal injury claim against the liable person at the civil court. Surely, before filing the lawsuit that matter can be resolved through an informal out of the court settlement. If that is not possible, the plaintiff can file a lawsuit to formally begin the process as per the provisions of the personal injury law. According to the personal injury law the plaintiff or the person who files the lawsuit have the responsibility to prove that he is injured and the person sued is directly responsible as his act of negligence caused the injury. There are some of the most common areas of personal injury law that we will discuss here.
Accident Injury – Any road traffic accidents, rail accidents, airline accidents, ship accidents comes under the purview of accident injury of the personal injury law.
Medical Malpractice – When a doctor, nurse, medical technician, hospital, and nursing home does wrong or show negligence in treating a patient and cause harm, it can be brought under the medical malpractice law.
Defective Product Liability – If a manufacturer, distributor or retailer provide defective product to the customer that causes harm, they can be sued for defective product liability.
Premise Liability – If anybody is injured at a premise as the owner of the property failed to maintain the premise, he can be sued for that act of negligence.
Wrongful Death Claim – If someone dies due to negligence or wrong deeds, family members and dependents of the dead person can claim financial compensation from the person who is liable for that death.
All said done, the process of personal injury law is quite complex and every state in United States have different legal provision in tort law. So to present your case flawlessly so that you can prove the wrong doing of the defendant and get your personal injury claim settled through court, you should consult a personal injury law attorney and hire his service to present your case at the court as early as possible.