Find out your rights when someone else is at fault

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Find Out Your Rights When Someone Else Is At Fault


When you've been injured, your primary focus is, of course, on gettingbetter. As such, you might not be devoting much, if any thought to yourrights in the larger context of the accident. In such cases, it is absolutelycritical that you secure the services of a good personal injury attorney assoon as feasible, so you can ensure that your rights are being preservedand protected.

If you've been injured in an accident, and you were not listed as havingcontributed to the accident, while some other individual was listed ashaving contributed to causing it, then you may well be entitled tocompensation for any damages incurred.


The process of determining negligence is not difficult, but it is a verydeliberate process, and it is absolutely essential for determining if someother party is actually liable for the damages you suffer. The process iscomprised of four distinct steps. Each step is dependent on the oneprevious to it. If at any point, you run into a condition that is not true,then there is little point in continuing through with the rest of theprocess, because odds are good that you have no actual case

• DutyThe first step is to determine if the person responsible for the accidenthad a legal duty to you. In the case of operating a motor vehicle, alldrivers have a legal duty to responsible driving behavior to all otherdrivers on the road, so this one is generally a fairly easy determinationto make.


Breach of DutyOnce you've established that the defendant had a legal duty to perform,the next step is to determine whether or not that duty was breached.From a practical standpoint, you can make this determination simply bylooking at the accident report as filed by the police. It will show whichparties were listed as contributing to the cause of the accident. If you'renot and the other person is, that is usually sufficient to determine abreach of duty informally, and your personal injury attorney can setabout finding evidence to confirm that the breach occurred.


Proximate Cause

This relates to the scope of the defendant's responsibility. That is to say,the defendant in a negligence case is responsible for those harms thatthe defendant could have foreseen through his or her actions. Forexample, let's say that you're driving a truck and earlier in the day youhad loaded bags of grain onto it, with a plan to haul them from onepoint to another for someone else. If one of the bags of grain falls offand hurts someone else, is the driver of the truck responsible for theinjury incurred or not? You see how quickly even seemingly simplescenarios can blossom into layers of complexity. This is one of thereasons you need a good attorney on your side!


Cause In FactThis is also called a "but-for" cause. But for the actions of thedefendant, this would not have happened. Essentially you're laying outthe case that if the defendant had not acted in a negligent fashion, youwould not have gotten hurt. Again, if you've established that a breachof duty occurred, this should not be difficult to establish.

DamagesFinally, if all of the above have been established, then you've got to beable to prove legally recognized harm, generally in the form of physicalinjury to person or property. Simple negligence is insufficient. You'vegot to have suffered damages for there to be a basis for a suit.

Find out your rights when someone else is at fault

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