Woodland Hills Trucking Accident Lawyer
If you plan to file a personal injury lawsuit in order to receive compensation for your injury, the first thing you need to consider is whether or not the other part is actually at fault for your injury. This is typically determined using something called negligence, which is a legal term to describe when someone acted in a certain way. Of course, it is always best to speak with an attorney, rather than trying to figure out whether or not someone acted negligently on your own.
The Two Parts of Negligence
To make it easier to understand negligence, consider the two basic components that make it up:
- Acting unreasonably
- Causing harm to another
In order for someone to be negligent, both these components must be true of the actions he or she took. The first component is very subjective. Basically, it must be shown that an average person would not expect someone to act in the way the potentially negligent individual acted or failed to act.
The second component may seem less subjective, but it also can be quite difficult to prove. To be negligent, the individual’s actions must have directly caused harm to someone else. The individual would not be considered negligent if the harm was unrelated to his or her actions, even if those actions are considered unreasonable. On the other hand, a perfectly reasonable and expected action that causes harm to someone is still not negligent. The concept of negligence depends on both these factors being true together.
The Legal Definition
That is the general idea behind determining negligence, but the legal definition is a little more specific than that. To dig a little deeper, negligence has four components, rather than two. These four components are duty, breach, causation, and damage. You can probably already tell how these four components relate to the two general components already discussed.
As far as the law is concerned, to be negligent, someone must have a duty to act a certain way and breach that duty by failing to act that way. Then, that breach of duty must directly cause damages to another individual. This legal definitely leaves no room for interpretation, so everyone who causes injury to another is held responsible and no one who is innocent is unjustly convicted. Your Woodland Hills trucking accident lawyer is the one who must prove that all four of these components apply in order to receive the compensation you are owed. This is a very difficult challenge, so never try to represent yourself.
Contact Barry P. Goldberg for their insight into personal injury claims and legal negligence.
