No matter what caused your personal injury, there are four elements upon which all personal injury claims are based. There are the four areas we look at to give you the best possible chance of winning your personal injury case.
Duty
Most personal injuries are caused by some form of negligence. This means that the other party had a duty of care towards you and this duty was not fulfilled. Your employer, for example, has a duty of care to ensure that you are provided with the equipment you need to carry out your assigned tasks safely. If you are forced to handle hazardous substances without the proper personal protective equipment (or PPE), then your company has failed to uphold its duty. Similarly, each citizen using the road has a duty to drive safely and follow the law so that the roads are safe for all drivers. Any party acting in a way that endangers other drivers acting lawfully has abandoned this duty.
Breach
Once it has been established that the other party had some kind of duty to keep you safe or protect you from harm, it must now be considered whether the other party failed to uphold this duty. Neglecting to fulfill this obligation is considered a breach of their duty of care. For example, a product manufacturer is obliged to ensure that their products will not harm you in any way when used properly. If you are injured as a result of a product defect , the manufacturer has breached their duty towards you.
Causation
Now that we know the other party had a duty to protect you from harm and that they failed to uphold this duty for one reason or another, it’s time to consider causation. We have to be able to show that the injury you suffered was the result of their failure to fulfill their duty of care. To put it another way, it has to be clear that you would not have come to harm if they carried out their duty of care properly. Let’s say, for example, that you were in a car accident caused by the other driver failing to stop at a stop sign. If the other driver had stopped, your vehicles would not have collided and you would not have been injured.
Damage
Finally, this final element covers your actual injuries and other damage to your person. This obviously mostly consists of physical injuries, such as whiplash, broken bones, burns or similar. However, this can also extend to pain and suffering. We will use your medical records as well as other statements, such as from therapists and alternative treatment providers, to establish the extent of your physical and emotional suffering as well as any secondary impacts.
If you’re ready to initiate your personal injury case, contact us at Scranton Law Firm today for a free case review.
