How do I know if I have a personal injury case?
In law school, my torts professor entered the first day and repeated the following:
1. INJURY
2. DUTY
3. BREACH
4. CAUSATION
Those terms are rather vague, but they provide a good roadmap to for analyzing whether you might have a personal injury case.
Injury
“Injury” is pretty obvious. Another, closely related term, you might hear would be “damages”. A simple question to ask here is: Were you injured, wounded, harmed, or otherwise negatively affected in some form or fashion? That can include physical, mental, or emotional damage. Even if someone was careless or negligent, if their carelessness did not cause you any harm, you probably do not have a personal injury claim.
Duty
“Duty” is less obvious, but relatively easy to understand. Did it become someone else’s duty to act with a certain level of care when interacting with you? A few examples include: another driving near you, operating machinery around you, building or designing a product that you use, maintaining a parking lot or walkway you use, and/or performing surgery on you. These duties are formed, for most, thousands of times each day.
Breach
“Breach” is another unfamiliar term. It is closely related to “duty”. Many have heard the term more frequently in the context of contracts. If someone breaches a contract, they failed to live up to whatever they agreed to in it. Similarly here, if one comes to owe a duty of care to another (ie. while driving past you on the road) failing to do that with appropriate care (ie. texting while driving and veering into oncoming traffic) is a “breach” of that unspoken agreement amongst all drivers to operate vehicles with the utmost care.
Causation
“Causation” is relatively straight forward. Did another’s “breach” of the “duty” of care he or she owed to you “cause” or “contribute to cause” you to suffer any “injury”? If you can show it is more likely that not that the breach contributed to cause the injury, you very likely have a personal injury claim.
How valuable that claim might be is then determined by the extent of your injury and/or damages.
FOR MORE INFORMATION & TO SEE THE LAWYERS AT MCDUFFEY & MEDCALF CAN HELP YOU WITH YOUR PERSONAL INJURY CASE:
CALL 573-302-7211 TO SCHEDULE A FREE CONSULT
EMAIL: br**@mc*********.com
OR SUBMIT YOUR INFORMATION HERE FOR A FREE CASE EVALUATION.
For More information on Personal Injury Law:
What should I do if I am in a car accident?
