If you are injured and want to recover compensation from those who harmed you, you need to understand a legal concept called negligence. Negligence is critical in most personal injury claims, and it can make or break your case.
Berry Law can help you understand the details of legal negligence and can work with you to prove your claim so you can maximize your chances of being fully compensated for injuries.
You can give us a call today to schedule a free consultation and learn more about the role of negligence in your claim, and how our Omaha personal injury lawyers can help you prove negligence so you can get paid for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and emotional distress.
You can also read on to learn more about negligence, why it matters, and how the law defines it.
Why Is Negligence Important in Personal Injury Cases?
If someone hurts you, they can be held accountable under the law and made to pay you for your losses — but only if they did something wrong. You could pursue a claim based on intentional wrongdoing, like if someone assaulted you and caused you injuries. You can also pursue a claim based on negligence, which is more common.
When your claim is based on negligence, there are four specific elements of your case you have to prove. You must show:
- The defendant had a legal duty to you. This means they had an obligation to exercise reasonable care.
- The defendant breached the legal duty. They breach the legal duty by being negligent, or unreasonably careless under the circumstances.
- The negligence was the direct cause of the harm you experienced. Simply being careless isn’t enough to make someone liable for losses — their failures must have been the reason you were hurt.
- You suffered damages that you should be compensated for. This means actual physical and emotional harm must have occurred because of the negligence.
If you can prove all of these different elements of your case, then you can make a successful personal injury claim. Berry Law will help you to do just that, working with you to gather details like police reports, witness statements, and more.
How to Prove Negligence in a Personal Injury Claim
There are a few different ways to prove negligence, and the standard is going to depend on your case. For example:
- In many personal injury claims, including car accident cases, you need to show that the defendant was more careless than the average reasonable person would have been.
- In some injury claims, like medical malpractice, you must show the defendant was more careless than the average reasonable professional would have been under the same circumstances
- In premises liability claims, you need to show the property owner failed to fulfill obligations based on why you were at the property, with the standard of care required much higher for those invited to do business with the property owner compared with casual visitors or trespassers
You can also prove negligence by demonstrating that a violation of a safety rule was the direct cause of harm that the rule was intended to prevent. For example, if a driver broke speed limit laws and caused a car accident due to speeding, this by itself is enough to show negligence without further evidence of carelessness.
Eyewitness testimony, expert testimony, security camera footage, and police reports are all examples of the different kinds of evidence you may be able to collect to show negligence — and Berry Law will help you to gather the proof you need to succeed in your case.
Contact an Omaha Personal Injury Lawyer Today
If you have been hurt, reach out to an Omaha personal injury lawyer at Berry Law ASAP for help proving negligence. Our firm has a long history of successful cases, and we’ll put our legal knowledge to work to help you make the strongest possible claim.
