How Do I Prove Negligence in a Personal Injury Case?

To get the compensation you are owed in a personal injury case, you have to be able to prove that your losses and damages were caused by the negligence of another person. This can be tricky to do, but a Salt Lake City personal injury lawyer will have the experience you need to prove this and maximize your compensation.

How Your Lawyer Proves Negligence in Your Personal Injury Case

To prove negligence, there are several elements that you will need to prove. Think of all this as a bit like building a tower out of toy bricks. You have to build the first layer, then the second, then the third, and each layer depends on the layer below it. There are four important elements that must be proved in any personal injury case: duty of care, breach of the duty of care, causality, and damages. Here’s how it works:

Element One: The Negligent party Had a Duty of Care

A “duty of care” is a legal term referring to the requirement that any person has to act as a reasonable person would in a situation. For example, all drivers on Utah roads are expected to follow the rules of the road and drive carefully. This is their duty of care towards everyone else who uses that road. The owner of a property has a duty of care towards visitors. They must either fix known hazards or properly warn visitors of those hazards and protect them. Doctors have a duty of care towards their patients that requires them to act as any competent medical professional would under the same circumstances. A manufacturer of a product has a duty of care towards consumers to ensure that the product is safe to use when used correctly and to point out any known or likely hazards that could arise from the misuse of the product.

Proving duty of care will depend on the situation. In a car accident, it’s very simple to prove this. Simply by getting behind the wheel, every driver immediately becomes obligated to obey road rules and drive carefully. With an owner of a property, proving they had a duty of care would require proving who owns the property and showing your status on that property. The duty of care for a property owner depends on the status of the property and the visitor. The highest duty of care is owed to those who are invited onto a commercial property to do business. A slightly lesser duty of care is owed to invited visitors on private property. No duty of care is owed to adult trespassers, though property owners cannot deliberately injure them. In a medical malpractice lawsuit against a doctor, proving duty of care requires proving that there was a patient/doctor relationship between you and the doctor you are bringing a claim against.

Element Two: The Negligent Party Violated the Duty of Care

The next element is proving that the person who had a duty of care towards you breached that duty. For example, you may need to show that a driver was breaking a traffic law or that they were driving inappropriately for the weather conditions. Even if the speed limit on a road is 45 mph, for instance, in a bad weather situation with heavy traffic, going 45 mph could be seen as reckless and thus a breach of the duty of care. The question would be if the average, reasonable driver in the same situation would have gone more slowly. In a premises liability suit, you would need to show that the owner of the property either knew about a hazard or could reasonably have been expected to know about it and failed to fix it or warn you. In medical malpractice, you will need to be able to show that a competent and reasonable doctor in that same situation would have treated you differently.

Proving a violation of the duty of care requires clear evidence. In a traffic accident, photos, witness testimony, and video evidence may be able to prove that the other driver was breaking a traffic law. In a premises liability suit, store security footage or witness testimony may be important. Your lawyer might also be able to find evidence that a hazard was known to the property owner and was not addressed. With medical malpractice, this element can be very difficult to prove, since medicine is somewhat subjective and doctors often must use their best judgment and make educated guesses. It will be important to have experienced and convincing expert medical testimony to show that you were not treated correctly and that your injury was not due to “bad luck” or lack of information but because the doctor acted negligently.

Element Three: Causation

Just because someone had a duty of care to you and breached it does not automatically mean that they are responsible for your injury. You must also prove that it was specifically their breach of duty that caused the accident in which you were injured. In legal terms, you must be able to prove that “but for” the action or inaction of the other person, there would not have been an accident at all.

For example, if a drunk driver hits your car, in most cases that will be because of their breach of the duty of care in driving incapacitated. But in rare instances, their drunkenness may actually have not caused the accident at all. For example, if a drunk driver was sitting stopped at a red light, and another vehicle ran into them suddenly and caused their car to run into you, the drunk driver likely couldn’t be held responsible simply because they were drunk. Driving drunk will have other, criminal consequences for them, but if it was not their drunkenness that caused or contributed to the accident, then you cannot bring a claim against them.

Proving causation requires not only collecting evidence, but also connecting all the dots. This requires a logical mind and a careful process of argument, and this is one of the areas where you will most need the help of your lawyer. Your lawyer will put all this evidence together to show convincingly that the other party’s breach of the duty of care caused the accident.

Element Four: Damages

This is often the simplest element to prove, but it’s still very important. You must be able to show that the accident which was caused by someone else’s breach of the duty of care actually caused you damages and what those damages are. The most common evidence used here are medical bills, the testimony of therapists and family as to what you’ve suffered and how your life has changed, and financial documentation showing time that you lost from work and other financial losses.

It’s important to know that the longer you delay in getting medical attention after an accident, the easier it becomes for the other side to argue that your injuries were not caused by the accident or are not as bad as you claim. It’s always important to get a medical evaluation immediately after an accident, even if you don’t think you feel all that bad.