Auto Accidents and Personal Injury Lawsuits

If you have been injured in an automobile accident, you may file a personal injury lawsuit against the person who caused the accident. You can obtain compensation for your injuries if you win. The lawsuit will probably involve issues of negligence.

Negligence refers to conduct which an ordinarily careful person would not do, or the failure to do that which an ordinarily careful person would do. The basic parts of a negligence action are:

• The legal duty to use care
• A violation of that duty, and
• A clear relationship between the violation and the injury

Whether a defendant's negligence caused an automobile accident depends on what the defendant reasonably should have anticipated under the circumstances at the time of the accident, and not upon what actually happened.

Duty of Care

In lawsuits resulting from automobile accidents, a key question will be whether the defendant met his duty of care in driving his car, and whether his actions created an unreasonable risk of harm. When driving, if a risk can reasonably be anticipated, it must be avoided.

The standard of care or level of care to be met by a motorist in operating a vehicle is called "reasonable care" or ordinary prudence.

In operating a vehicle with reasonable care, a motorist must:

• Operate the vehicle at a reasonable rate of speed
• Keep the vehicle under proper control
• Look out for all situations which could result in an accident

What Caused the Injuries

For a motorist to be liable for your injuries, his conduct must have caused your injuries. His careless conduct must have in fact contributed to your injuries. If you would have been injured even if the motorist had not acted as he did, the motorist is not liable.

Also, a reasonable person, under similar circumstances, must have been able to foresee or anticipate a risk of harm to you due to the motorist's actions. For example, if you are crossing a street, it would be apparent to a reasonable motorist that he should slow down so that he does not run into you. The risk of harm to you if he does not slow down is foreseeable.

Intervening Causes

A defendant may not be liable to the plaintiff if some force intervenes with the defendant's original negligence and actually causes the accident or injury. For example: A motorist was negligent and caused a collision with another vehicle and a police officer responds to the accident. If the officer is then injured in another collision at the accident scene by a third motorist, the negligence of the third motorist is an intervening cause with respect to the police officer's injuries, and the first motorist would not be liable. The action of the third motorist could not have reasonably been anticipated by the first motorist at the time of the first's motorist's negligence, and the third motorist's actions were the actual cause of the officer's injuries.

Damages and Awards

Damages refer to an award of money in a lawsuit. They are intended to compensate the injured person for past and future economic losses, including medical expenses and lost wages, as well as for general damages, such as pain and suffering.

Punitive damages are designed to punish and deter the wrongdoer. They are only awarded if the defendant was guilty of some aggravated wrongful conduct in addition to ordinary negligence.

Defenses to Personal Injury Lawsuits

Contributory negligence is conduct by the plaintiff which creates an unreasonable risk of harm to the plaintiff and which helps to cause the plaintiff's injuries. The plaintiff's negligence and the defendant's negligence together cause the plaintiff's injuries. In states which have adopted the doctrine of comparative negligence, the plaintiff's damages are reduced by the percentage of the plaintiff's contributory negligence.

Assumption of the risk is conduct by which one person agrees to assume the risk of harm arising from another person's negligence, or where a person agrees to accept the risk presented in a given situation. For example, a person can sign an agreement in which he agrees to not hold a second person liable for injuries caused by the second person's negligence. A person can assume a risk by taking action, such as pushing a vehicle in traffic, which involves accepting the risk of being hit by another vehicle.

Under the emergency doctrine, a plaintiff who is confronted with an emergency requiring immediate action, and with little time to weigh alternative courses, is not negligent where he or she fails to choose what later appears to be a better course of action.

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