In many cases, when you are injured, some person or company is responsible for hurting you. If you have been hurt and this is true in your situation, you may be entitled to recover compensation for the losses the injury caused you to endure.
However, you must prove fault in order to recover that compensation. This means you must show the defendant was to blame and should be held legally responsible for paying for your damages.
Berry Law can help with this process as an Omaha injury attorney at our firm offers decades of experience building strong claims and demonstrating fault in personal injury claims. You can give us a call at any time to learn more.
How to Prove Fault in a Personal Injury Claim
Although there are different kinds of personal injury claims, there are a few basic things you must prove in each one.
- The defendant owed you a legal duty. This duty can arise in many ways. Drivers have a duty to others on the road to be safe. Property owners have a duty to maintain safe premises. Product makers have a duty to release safe products and warn about risks.
- The defendant breached the legal duty. This means showing they didn’t live up to their obligations. You can show they breached a duty by demonstrating they were negligent, or less careful than the average reasonable person would have been. You can also show a violation of a safety rule or, in the case of a defective product, simply that it caused harm when used as intended.
- The breach was the direct cause of harm. The defendant’s actions must have been the reason you were hurt. If someone was driving drunk, but that had nothing to do with the reason for your accident, they wouldn’t be liable for your losses.
- You suffered damages that you can be compensated for. You need to show the extent of your losses, including the medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and emotional distress you have experienced.
You’ll generally need to prove each of these elements in a personal injury claim, although there can be variations.
In a professional negligence case, like a medical malpractice case, for example, doctors are held to a higher professional standard of care to determine if they breached a duty. And, in the case of a defective product, you don’t need to prove negligence — just that the defect was there when the product was used as intended and caused you harm.
Types of Evidence in a Personal Injury Claim
There are many different kinds of evidence you could gather to help you prove the key elements in a personal injury claim, but again, your options will vary depending on the accident cause. Some types of evidence you may be able to collect include:
- Witness testimony from those who saw the incident
- Police reports
- Toxicology reports, phone records, or other documents showing the defendant was negligent or behaved in an unsafe way
- Physical evidence, such as debris from the area where a car crash took place, or a defective product that you can show was dangerous
- Expert testimony on things like accident causes or loss of lifetime earnings due to injury
- Medical records and a pain journal showing the extent of your damages
- Maintenance logs in the case of a premises liability or truck accident claim
These are just some of the many different kinds of evidence you may need as you make your case.
Getting Help from a Personal Injury Lawyer
Berry Law has helped many clients put together a strong personal injury claim when someone hurt them. Give us a call today to talk with an Omaha injury lawyer who can help you prove fault so you can get the compensation you deserve.
