Terms to Know for a Personal Injury Claim

Sometimes, it’s hard to understand basic personal injury claim terms like tortfeasor and negligence. Like all attorneys, we sometimes speak in Legalese. That’s the language we learned. Furthermore, many of these terms have specific meanings that don’t translate well to English.

Legal terms are often frustrating for clients. They need to understand the issues in their cases to make good decisions regarding things like settling the case and holding out for more money. However, when a New York kişisel yaralanma avukatı uses Legalese, that’s not a bad thing, as long as the lawyer translates the term.

Negligence/Negligent

Ordinary negligence is a lack of care. Since New York is a comparative fault state, a negligence case has five basic elements:

• Görev: Most drivers have a duty of reasonable care. They must avoid accidents, if possible, by driving defensively. Furthermore, drivers must be at their physical, mental, and emotional best when they get behind the wheel. Commercial drivers, like truck drivers, have a higher duty of care in some cases.
• Çiğneme: The duty sets up the breach. Drivers breach their duty of care when they don’t drive defensively or are impaired. Some noncommercial drivers can use the wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time defense to escape liability. Commercial drivers usually can’t use this defense due to the higher duty of care.
• Neden: Driver negligence must substantially cause injury. There’s a difference between substantial and exclusive cause. Assume Mary was speeding on a wet road and lost control of her car. The wet road contributed to the crash, but Mary’s excessive speed caused it.
• Yasal Sebep: A New York personal injury lawyer must also prove foreseeability (possibility) of injury. When Mary loses control of her car, it’s possible, though unlikely, that she could hit a truck carrying hazardous waste. If a victim’s doctor makes a medical mistake at the hospital, that’s not foreseeable.
• hasarlar: Usually, victims must sustain some personal injury or property damage to file a negligence claim in court. Any degree of physical damage will do. However, the worse the damage, the more compensation the court will probably award.

Negligence per se is a little different. Sometimes, a safety law, instead of the duty of care, establishes the standard of care. So, if a driver violates a safety law, like the speeding law, and that violation substantially causes injury, the victim could be entitled to compensation as a matter of law.

Bu tazminat genellikle tıbbi faturalar gibi ekonomik kayıplar ve ağrı ve ıstırap gibi ekonomik olmayan kayıplar için para içerir.

Tortfeasor

A tortfeasor is a negligent actor, usually a property owner or driver. Drivers are usually negligent if they drive while impaired or drive aggressively.

Substance abuse is the most common kind of driver impairment. Almost yarım of tortfeasors tested positive for alcohol or another drug, usually marijuana. These drugs impair motor skills and judgment abilities. Furthermore, the impairing effects of alcohol and other drugs usually begin with the first sip, puff, or pill.

Speeding is the most common, and most dangerous, kind of aggressive driving. Speed transforms non-injury fender-benders into serious or catastrophic (life-threatening) injury collisions. Speeding also increases the risk of a wreck by increasing stopping distance, giving drivers less time to react.

There’s a difference between an at-fault driver and a tortfeasor. If Bill was speeding and Tom was drunk, emergency responders would most likely conclude that Tom was at fault. But because of the comparative negligence doctrine, a jury could reach the opposite conclusion.

Veraset

Tortfeasors are legally responsible for the injuries they negligently cause. A third party might be financially responsible for damages.

Commercial alcohol providers, like restaurants and bars, are financially responsible for car crash damages if they sell alcohol to intoxicated people. Evidence of intoxication at the time of sale includes:

• Prior purchases at that location,
• Bloodshot eyes, unsteady balance, and other physical symptoms, and
• Statements the tortfeasor made to bartenders or other patrons.

Private party hosts might be financially responsible for alcohol-related crashes as well, under a theory like negligent undertaking (starting something, like a safe driver program, and not following through with it).

Settlement Value

A personal injury claim’s settlement value is like a new car’s sticker price. The sticker price is the sum of the cost of the car’s components. Likewise, the settlement value is the sum of economic and noneconomic damages in a negligence case.

Economic damages are relatively easy to determine. These damages include medical bills, along with lost wages, property damage, and a few other out-of-pocket expenses, like the loss of a pet in a crash. To ascertain the value of noneconomic damages, most attorneys multiply the economic damages by two, three, or four, depending on the evidence in the case.

Informed clients are the best clients, which is why it’s important to understand some basic legalese. For a free consultation with an New York'ta deneyimli kişisel yaralanma avukatı, Napoli Shkolnik ile iletişime geçin. Bu konularda peşin yasal ücret almıyoruz ve yalnızca davanızı kazandığımızda bir ücret alıyoruz.