How to Prove Fault in Personal Injury Cases: A Guide for Plaintiffs
Oklahoma car accidents, slip and fall incidents, medical malpractice, and more may be considered personal injury events compensable through the filing of a personal injury claim when the incidents occurred due to someone’s negligence. You must be able to prove that a duty of care was breached which caused your injuries, in order to be successful with your claim. For example, it is easy to prove that a drunk driver breached his duty of care to others on the road because they chose to drive while impaired. If that choice led to a car wreck that rendered you injured, you have the right by law to seek compensation.
Some personal injury events can be straightforward and easy to prove, like the example mentioned above. Others, however, can be quite complicated. For example, when many vehicles are involved in a car wreck, it becomes more difficult to ascertain exactly who caused the accident to happen. Similarly, in a truck accident, there may be other liable parties than just the driver, including the trucking company, the manufacturer of parts on the truck, maintenance crews, and so on.
If you were injured by the misconduct of another party, you may be entitled to financial compensation for your losses. To learn more about filing a claim and what your claim could be worth, please reach out to our Oklahoma City personal injury attorney at the Putnam Law Office. The legal team at the Putnam Law Office has several years of experience helping victims of personal injury events both prove negligence and show fault to win the most possible front heir claims.
What is Needed to Prove Fault in a Personal Injury Claim
The individual or entity that brings about a civil suit for compensation is called the plaintiff. The party the suit is brought against is the defendant. When a plaintiff files a claim for compensation, it is necessary that by a preponderance of the evidence, they show the other party was negligent and caused their injury accident and resulting losses. The term “preponderance of evidence” simply means that the evidence shows something was more likely to have happened than not.
To prove negligence, there are four elements that must exist. These include:
- The defendant had a duty to the plaintiff not to cause them harm.
- The defendant violated that duty.
- The defendant’s breach of that duty of care caused the accident to take place.
- The plaintiff suffered injuries and damages as a result of the accident.
Once it can be shown that an entity or party was negligent and their carelessness caused the accident that led to the plaintiff’s damages, a plaintiff is likely to be awarded financial compensation to cover all of their losses. When this likelihood is present, the insurance company for the defendant may agree to settle the case out of court for a satisfactory amount to avoid the cost of going to trial.
In some cases, both the plaintiff and the defendant can be deemed to be at some degree of fault for causing an accident. Oklahoma’s negligence laws indicate that a plaintiff’s proportion of responsibility cannot be larger than that of the defendants to be eligible to recover compensation.
Recovering Compensation in an Oklahoma Personal Injury Accident
Determining negligence and fault can be convoluted and difficult to establish clearly. When you are badly injured from a personal injury accident, it can be even harder to figure out how to file your claim and hit all of the necessary elements to be successful because you are focused on recovering physically and mentally from what you have gone through. An attorney that has experience with tort law and managing personal injury claims can help you with this.
For assistance with a personal injury claim in Oklahoma, please call the Putnam Law Office today to schedule a free consultation at 405-724-7701.
