Who Can File A Personal Injury Lawsuit
When an individual suffers harm as a result of another’s actions or inactions, they often understandably wonder whether they have any legal or financial opportunities for recourse available to them. There is no way to tell for sure whether an individual has cause to file legal action until their circumstances have been thoroughly evaluated by an attorney. However, there are some general rules that injury victims can keep in mind when determining whether it is worth their time to speak with a lawyer after sustaining harm.
Causation and Fault
As an experienced personal injury lawyer can confirm, one of the primary reasons why it is virtually impossible for an injury victim to know whether they have strong grounds upon which to file legal action until they have spoken with an attorney is that the cause(s) of any given injury and whether anyone can be held liable for that harm are so contextual.
Most of the time, an injury victim can hold another accountable for their harm if the responsible party owed them a duty of care under the law, breached that duty by behaving in ways that the law deems to be negligent, reckless, or intentionally harmful, and that breach directly caused the victim’s injuries. With that said, there are exceptions to that rule. Additionally, there are some personal injury cases in which a victim will not be required to prove all of these legal elements in order to succeed on the merits of their case. For example, some product liability cases are won under a legal theory known as strict liability. In strict liability cases, victims do not have to prove that the manufacturer of a dangerous or defective product was negligent in order to hold them accountable for harm caused by their products.
Damages
If an attorney evaluates the circumstances of any recent injuries that you may have sustained and determines that the cause and fault issues of your situation provide you with strong grounds upon which to file a legal case, you can then take this legal guidance and do with it what you will. Just because you are empowered to file a personal injury lawsuit doesn’t mean you have to. With that said, you may be entitled to a substantial damages award at this time and, therefore, this opportunity is likely one worth considering.