How Do You Prove Negligence in a Personal Injury Case?

Most personal injury cases turn on the concept of "negligence." One person acts in a negligent way—running a stop sign, letting a broken handrail go unfixed—and someone else gets hurt as a result. Let's take an in-depth look at the elements of negligence, and what goes into proving this key aspect of a personal injury claim.

What Are the Elements of Negligence?

The basics of negligence are well-established, and they're largely the same from state to state. If you're filing a personal injury lawsuit over most kinds of accidents, you'll need to prove that:

• the defendant (the person you're suing for causing your accident) owed you a "duty of care"
• the defendant acted in a way that violated or "breached" that duty of care
• the injured person is incarcerated or is on active military duty during some portion of the applicable period of limitations
• the defendant's negligent actions resulted in some kind of harm to you, and
• the defendant's negligent actions were the legal cause of that harm.

Let's discuss a few of these elements and related concepts in a bit more detail.

The Duty of Care and the "Reasonable Person"

Longstanding legal principles define negligence as the failure to exercise the degree of care that a "reasonable person" (or a "reasonably prudent person") would act with under the circumstances of the underlying accident or incident. In other words, negligence can be (somewhat simplistically) defined as:

• doing something that a reasonable person (or a reasonably prudent person) would not do, or
• failing to do something that a reasonable person would do.

What Would the "Reasonable Person" Do?

Let's look at some examples to help illustrate what a reasonably prudent or careful person would do (or not do) in certain situations.

A reasonably prudent driver would stop at a stop sign. They'd also stop (or at least slow to an almost-stop) at an unmarked intersection, regardless of whether a traffic law requires them to, because another vehicle might be coming. In other words, significantly reducing speed at an unmarked intersection is reasonably cautious behavior, and it's something a "reasonable person" would do in order to avoid a car accident.

A reasonably prudent dog owner would probably keep their dog on a leash at all times outside of the house, regardless of whether the local county or town has a "leash law." It's a proper precaution for preventing the animal from making aggressive—or merely unwanted— contact with another person (not to mention a reasonable precaution for preventing dog bites).

A reasonably prudent property owner would regularly inspect their property to make sure there aren't any dangerous conditions that could cause visitors to the property to slip and fall or otherwise become injured. And if the reasonably prudent property owner notices an issue that could pose a hazard, they'll take reasonable steps to fix the problem within (you guessed it) a reasonable amount of time.

Breaching the Duty of Care

There are as many ways for the duty of care to be breached as there are varieties of accidents. Let's take a look at some examples.

Car Accidents

Certain duties of care arise from the operation of vehicles. For example, drivers have a duty to pay proper attention to the road while driving. Texting while driving is a classic example of how a driver can breach the duty of care owed to other drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and anyone else on the road.

Drivers also have a duty to follow state traffic laws. Yes, a driver shouldn't run a stop sign because it's illegal, but it's also unsafe and can easily result in a car accident. Running a stop sign (or violating any traffic law put in place to make the roads safer) is a textbook example of how the duty of care can be breached.

Slip and Fall Accidents

If a cleaning company is waxing the linoleum floors in an office building, the cleaning company's employees owe a duty of care to anyone who might walk by. That means putting up cones or a warning sign indicating that the floors have been freshly waxed. Failure to take reasonable steps to warn visitors of the dangerous condition can amount to a breach of the duty of care, if a slip and fall accident occurs.

Homeowner Liability

A residential landowner has a duty to fix cracked or broken steps leading from the sidewalk to the house, especially if the homeowner knows that the steps are broken, and the danger isn't obvious to someone visiting the property. Most states' laws say that a landowner who has knowledge of a non-obvious danger breaches the duty of care by failing to take reasonable steps to remedy the danger (or at least adequately warn visitors).

Causation and "Foreseeability"

In a typical personal injury case, there is a clear and direct chain of causation between the defendant's conduct and the injuries suffered by the plaintiff. But that's not true in every case, and if the plaintiff's injuries weren't foreseeable, the defendant might be off the legal hook.

What Is Foreseeability?

When a driver violates the traffic laws, runs a red light and strikes another vehicle, the broken arm sustained by the driver of the other vehicle can pretty easily be seen to have been caused by the impact of the car accident, and the injured driver is entitled to damages. In this case, we say that the responsible driver's negligence was the "proximate cause" of the injury.

In practical terms, this means that the responsible driver should have reasonably foreseen that personal injuries—such as broken bones—would result from his negligent decision to run the red light. So, "foreseeability" matters in a personal injury case because it limits the scope of injuries for which the responsible party can be held liable for damages.

Intervening and Superseding Causes

Put simply, an intervening or superseding cause breaks the chain of causation between the responsible party's negligence and the victim's injuries. For example, if a third party arrives on the scene of the auto accident and shoots the victim in the foot, the person responsible for causing the car accident won't be held liable for the victim's foot injuries because criminal acts of third parties aren't foreseeable in the eyes of the law. "Foreseeability" matters in this situation because it distinguishes between injuries for which the person causing the accident is and is not legally responsible.

The Breach of Duty Must Cause Harm ("Damages")

A personal injury case based on the legal theory of negligence won't be successful unless the person bringing the case can show that they suffered some kind of harm as a result of the defendant's actions. This kind of compensable harm is called "damages" in the language of the law.

Damages come in a number of different flavors, including:

• the cost of medical treatment necessary to treat accident-related injuries
• income lost, or time missed at work, because of the injuries
• physical damage to property, and
• the injured person's physical and mental "pain and suffering," which can include everything from mental health issues to inconvenience.