Personal injury is a legal term that is used to describe an injury to the body, mind, or emotion to an individual, which is in contrast to an injury to personal property of an individual. This is a term that is often used to refer to a specific lawsuit in which there is a breach of civil duty by someone else. The cause of a personal injury lawsuit is due to the plaintiff describing an injury caused by the negligence of another individual. There are a variety of types of personal injury claims. The most common type of personal injury lawsuit that goes to court is an injury claim due to some type of road traffic accident, accident at work, tripping accidents, assault claims, accidents in the home, product defects, and holiday accidents. Also …show more content…
If the negligence of another party can be proved, the injured party is often awarded a monetary compensation from the negligent party. This is a type of lawsuit that has come under scrutiny in the United States because the system for determining whether the party is guilty or not has become increasingly complex and controversial. In most cases, the hired attorney works on a "contingency basis", meaning the fee paid to the attorney is based on the amount of compensation awarded to the plaintiff at the end of the case. Because of the complexity of these cases, it is often essential to have an attorney represent the plaintiff if the plaintiff intends to win the case. An example of this is a medical malpractice case, which can become very complicated for an individual not well versed in these types of trials. With personal injury cases there is often a structured settlement desired by the injury victim in order to cover the financial costs of the injury. These structured settlements also provide injury victims with tax benefits and enable proper financial planning for future needs of the individual who was injured so that they can continue their life in a normal …show more content…
This type of compensation is paid to the plaintiff due to the changes the accident has affected his or her life. Similar to this is a loss of congenial employment in which the person is compensated if there has been an inability to do work that was previously enjoyed due to the injuries that
Damages in the United States include two categories. Compensatory damages are intended to compensate for the plaintiff’s loss. Punitive damages, on the contrary, are meant to punish the defendant .The punitive damages exceed the plaintiff’s loss, to dissuade the defendant from any further wrongdoings. For instance, having a company pay significant punitive damages may encourage it to greater caution. Another difference between the two categories is the money involved. If the damages are compensatory, the money usually goes entirely to the plaintiff, but if they are punitive, part of the money goes to the law firm and part to the plaintiff.
Richard Arzu underwent a surgical procedure to correct a condition he was born with; known as dwarfism. He became paralyzed from the waist down as a result of the operation. Through legal representatives, Richard was awarded a substantial structured settlement from his malpractice action against the hospital that performed the said surgical procedure. The settlement payments were deposited into a joint account between Richard and Frank. Over a period of a few years, the father withdrew numerous times, large amounts of money. These transactions were not authorized or to the knowledge of the son. When Richard turned eighteen, the fund...
It is unfortunate that accidents that result in injuries are a part of life. Further more it is also unfortunate that often the party responsible for said accident do not feel compelled to offer compensation to the party affected. However in spite of this, there is still hope for the injured party thanks to personal injury lawyers. They are tasked with representing their clients who suffered from these events while making sure that their clients receive the compensation that they deserve. Ultimately personal injury lawyers play a big role with regards to safety initiatives by helping those injured, which is something that we all should aspire to do.
There are many steps to go through once you decide to file a lawsuit. Many Americans suffer from injuries but only a small percentage of them file a lawsuit because many of them have valid claims but they have little money. Sometimes when plaintiffs, the person filing the lawsuit, go to trial there is a lot of money that has to be spent up-front. “Taking a large case on a contingency fee and advancing all the out-of-pocket cost is a very expensive proposition” (Bourhis, 2005, p. 76). Lawyers have created the contingent-fee arrangement. This is where “a lawyer agrees to take a case without any money up front and without requiring the client to pay an hourly or flat fee. In return, the lawyer is entitled to receive a percentage of the actual amount of money collected, generally 33 percent, but sometimes 40 percent if ...
Nominal damages are generally recoverable by a plaintiff who successfully establishes that he or she has suffered an injury caused by the wrongful conduct of a defendant. Punitive damages are awarded not as compensation, but to punish the wrongdoer and to act as a deterrent to others who might engage in similar conduct.
Both passengers of the vehicle have currently filed suit against the company for compensatory damages. Compensatory damages are intended to provide relief to the affected individuals. The driver of the vehicle has suffered a back injury which prohibits him from participating in military training. This has directly resulted in his inability to deploy so he can sue the company for the money that he would have received had he deploye...
Medical malpractice cases are difficult for the families who have lost their loved one or have suffered from severe injuries. No one truly wins in complicated court hearings that consist of a team of litigation attorneys for both the defendant and plaintiff(s). During the trial, evidence supporting malpractice allegations have to be presented so that the court can make a decision if the physician was negligent resulting in malpractice, or if the injury was unavoidable due to the circumstances. In these types of tort cases, the physician is usually a defendant on trial trying to prove that he or she is innocent of the medical error, delay of treatment or procedure that caused the injury. The perfect example of being at fault for medical malpractice as a result of delaying a procedure is the case of Waverly family versus John Hopkins Health System Corporation. The victims were not compensated enough for the loss of their child’s normal life. Pozgar (2012) explained….
Americans file about 15 million lawsuits a year. (Cannell) A fourth of all lawsuits filed are either frivolous or fraudulent. Perhaps, the careless point of view about the seriousness of lawsuits is perpetuated by the false representation on the many law shows on TV, such as Ally
For example : person who shopping in supermarket and employee of the supermartket washed the floor ten minutes ago and floor is not dry,there is no sign to warn person that floor is wet,person slip on the floor and hurt leg and then he have to go to hospital, in spite of it he can not go to work for three week, in this situation he need to make a claim based on the principles of the law of tort. In this situation we have a person have physically hurt and he lost money,because of someone else’s
A tort is considered to be a civil wrong from which injury occurs to another person whether it is intentional or accidental. For such an offense, monetary value is the usual form of remedy. A classification of torts is that of negligence. “The tort of negligence allocates rights to individuals who have suffered damage, to their property or themselves, against a party that has failed to take reasonable care for that person’s safety” (Adams 2008). For an individual to have a successful claim in the tort of negligence, there must be proof of the duty of care, failure to perform that duty and damage suffered. Duty of care means that the claimant should show that the defendant should have thought about them (the claimant)
Any injury to an individual which is caused by another is called a tort. We have learned so far that these torts fall under three specific types, intentional, negligence and strict liability. I am sure that if I was to sit and reflect on the past that I would be able to recall being a victim, more than once, to some form of a tort and this is probably true for most people.
Derrick is filing claims of Negligence and is seeking Compensatory Damages for the injuries, pain and suffering he sustained. To win a negligence case, a plaintiff must prove five elements. Those are: Duty of Due Care, which means the defendant had a legal responsibilty to the plaintiff; Breach, which means the defendant breached her duty of care or failed to meet her legal obligations; Factual Cause, which means the defendant’s conduct actually caused the injury; Proximate Cause, which means it was forseeable that the conduct like the defendants’ might cause this type of harm to the plaintiff; and Damages, the plaintiff has actually been hurt or has actually suffered a measurable loss. A plaintiff generally receives compensatory damages, which means an amount of money that the court believes will restore him to the position he was in before the defandant’s conduct caused injury, for medical expenses that he has proven by producing bills from doctors, hospitals, etc. A plaintiff is also paid for pain and suffering.
Compensation is a form of corrective justice that can take a variety of forms. It is usually monetary in nature and manifested in an award of damages but may also be injunctive where necessary or take the form of self-help relief. According to Cecil A Wright; in modern living there must of necessity be losses and therefore, the purpose of the law of torts is to adjust these losses and to afford compensation for injuries sustained by one person as a result of the conduct of another .
The differential valuations of an individual's losses based on social identity such as socio-economic status, race and gender have been discussed to convey the discriminatory effects of restitutio. In the operation of restitutio, systemic inequalities are routinely reinforced through the objective repositioning the injured person to his or her original position prior to the injury. Consequently, people are valued on a case by case basis resulting in an unfair deduction of damages awarded. Additionally, the principle's operation is flawed due to its inability to predict the future, as well as the difficulty of quantifying damages for pain and suffering. Despite the benefit perceived in the qualification of loss of cultural fulfilment, the damages awarded cannot fully restore the plaintiff back to their same position. Lastly, the legislative changes have failed to address the fundamental flaw of restitutio in integrum, that is the unequal distribution of compensation and treatment of personal
Damages – if the other party cause’s drastic damages that cost the other party or affect it negatively than the other party can sue and take them to court of law, and the court may claim that the affected party may be paid and be taken back to its original position as it was