Common Personal Injury Accidents
By: LawInfo
Published: 11/2009
Personal injury accidents can happen anywhere and at anytime. However, some types of accidents are more common than others. It is important to understand the most common types of personal injury accidents to that you can try to avoid them and so that you can seek the assistance of a personal injury lawyer if you have the misfortune of being involved in such an accident.
Most personal injury accidents happen when someone acts negligently. In order to prove negligence, the injured party must be able to establish that the defendant:
- Owed the plaintiff a duty of care: The definition of a “duty of care” varies among the states. Some states look only to whether a personal injury was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions while other states look to the forseeability, the possible magnitude of the harm, the cost of avoiding the harm and other factors.
- Breached the duty of care: A defendant breaches his or her duty of care if the defendant failed to act like a reasonable person would have acted given the situation. The reasonable person standard is often one that is contested and argued about in personal injury litigation.
- Caused the plaintiff’s injuries: which would not have happened but for the defendant’s breach of the duty of care. In other words, the plaintiff’s injuries must have occurred because of the defendant’s actions and not because of some underlying medical cause or action that the plaintiff took.
- Is liable for damages to the plaintiff: If the above elements of negligence are satisfied and the plaintiff is either the injured party or someone with standing to sue then the plaintiff is entitled to damages.
Negligence is often established in the following types of common personal injury accident cases:
· Car Accidents: including rear end accidents and intersection accidents;
· Motorcycle Accidents;
· Truck Accidents;
· Boat Accidents;
· Bus Accidents;
· Pedestrian Accidents;
· Bicycle Accidents;
· Medical Accidents: including birth injuries, surgical errors, the failure to diagnose, emergency room malpractice and other forms of medical malpractice;
· Slip and Fall Accidents: including slipping and falling on uneven ground, wet floors or slippery spots;
· Workplace Accidents: including workplace illnesses such as Mesothelioma and injuries caused by machines or other equipment;
· Defective Product Accidents: including foodborne illnesses, children’s toys, defective drugs and defective medical devices; and
· Animal Bite Accidents.
Personal injury attorneys are familiar with the common types of personal injury accidents and can help you determine if you have a valid claim against the party or parties responsible for your injuries. Each state has a specific statute of limitations within which you must file a lawsuit to recover compensation for injuries sustained in a personal injury accident or forego your claim. Therefore, if you have sustained injuries or a loved one has been killed in any of the above listed common personal injury accidents or another type of personal injury accident then you should contact a personal injury lawyer in your state as soon as possible.
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