When a person’s wrongful conduct causes harm to another person, the injured person may get compensation through personal injury law.
Only injuries resulting from the wrongful actions of a party can lead to a personal injury claim. You can only sue if the person or entity that caused your injury has a duty of care.
Duty of care means that the person had the responsibility to ensure that you do not get hurt.
Seven Types of Personal Injury Claims
The most common personal injury claims include:
Motor Vehicle Accidents
There was more than two million vehicular traffic crashes on U.S. roadways in 2019, according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
More than 35,000 people lost their lives in these accidents. The most common causes for these accidents include distracted driving, fatigued drivers, speeding, and drunk driving.
At-fault drivers are often held responsible for these injuries and that means they are responsible for all the medical costs of the victims. However, in no-fault states, the insurance company of the injured party is responsible for the medical costs.
Slip and Fall Accidents
Slip and fall accidents often occur due to hazards found on both private and public premises.
The property owner may get sued after a slip and fall accident on their property because they have a legal duty to make their property safe and free of hazards. But the plaintiff has to prove that the property owner was negligent in order to win this case.
Medical Malpractice
Studies reveal that more than 300,000 deaths that occur in the U.S. each year are caused by medical errors.
An incompetent or negligent medical practitioner can misdiagnose diseases, give incorrect prescriptions, perform surgeries wrongly, and cause childbirth injuries. Another common medical malpractice is leaving surgical instruments in a patient’s body.
A health care professional has the duty to act with a reasonable degree of care and skill. When they fail to do so, they open themselves up to lawsuits.
But proving that a health care professional was negligent is not easy unless the professional left a surgical tool in your body. Another fact is that just because you get a bad result after receiving treatment does not mean that medical malpractice occurred.
Dog Bites
Most people don’t know that over 1.4 million people are bitten by dogs every year in the United States.
In Florida, the owner of the dog is often held liable even if the dog does not have a history of aggression. But you do have to prove that your injuries were a result of the dog owner’s negligence.
Defamation Slander or Libel
Your reputation may be “injured” if a person makes untrue statements about you. All you have to prove is that the defendant made an untrue statement about you and that it led to you experiencing financial loss.
Product Liability
Any number of injuries can be traced back to being caused by a defective product, including kitchen heating or cooking elements that do not act as designed or intended. Individuals near them could be burned or otherwise injured.
Foods sold from a facility that are found to have harmful bacteria in them could cause food poisoning, e.coli, or salmonella, just to name a few causes in which foods could make you sick. You bought the food or product in good faith but due to a negligent act of someone along the distribution way, you now become sick.
There should be recourse for that because it was not from your own doing.
Liability of Premises
The liability attached to premises not only includes slip and fall accidents, as mentioned above. However, if a staircase is broken and in need of repair but the owner does not repair it, and you ascend or descend it and it breaks under you, resulting in broken bones – that is also a case for your personal injury attorney to handle.
Listed above are some of the most common personal injury claims. Other personal injury cases can include assault and battery, dental accidents, or repetitive strain injury which could result from having to make the same type of physical motion over and over again.
There are many types of personal injury cases that have merit. Contact a personal injury attorney to explain your specific situation to determine if the case has enough merit to move forward in the legal system. An experienced lawyer is the best guide to help you with the process.