Understanding Negligence: Who’s At Fault?
While we will only discuss the types of negligence here, there is more to a negligence case than what type it is. You must be able to prove that the other party owed you a duty of care that they failed to support, that you sustained injury, and that the injury you sustained was caused by the defendant's breach of duty of care. Hire a personal injury or accident attorney to help you understand what this all means and to know your chances of success.
Defining Negligence
Before we can discuss the different types of negligence, it’s important to understand what negligence even means in legal terms.The legal definition of negligence, according to Forbes, is “the failure to exercise the level of care toward another person that a reasonable or prudent person would under similar circumstances.” To put it more simply, when one person acts in a way that most people wouldn’t and causes someone harm, that is negligence in the eyes of the law.
An example of negligence would be if the floor of an establishment is wet for some reason but a wet floor sign is missing. Who exactly is at fault for this incident may vary, but it’s certainly negligence that caused you to suffer harm.
Another example of negligence would be when a driver fails to stop at a stop sign or red light and crashes into another vehicle or person. This second example is a bit easier to break down.
The driver who ran the stop sign is the negligent party and would become the defendant in the lawsuit; they failed their duty of care to those around them to follow the rules of the road and stop. The driver who was hit would be the plaintiff, and so long as the accident injured them in some way, they could sue the other driver for the damages they suffered.
Understanding Comparative Negligence
The car accident example leads us directly to our first type of negligence: comparative negligence, which is commonly used to assign blame in a car accident. Sometimes, multiple parties are partly responsible for a car crash and are each assigned blame as necessary. For example, if you and another driver reach a four-way stop and both crash into each other, the specifics of the incident would determine who had more fault. If you both ran the stop sign, you may both be equal in fault. If one of you had stopped and were already moving through the intersection when the other driver ran the sign, then the person who didn’t stop may be assigned most, if not all, of the fault.In comparative negligence cases, the amount of damages you earn from a victory may differ from what you were awarded. For example, if you sued for five thousand dollars and won but were assigned fifty percent of the fault, then you would only receive two thousand five hundred dollars.
On top of this, each state has a limit on how much fault a part can be assigned and still receive damages, which is usually either fifty or fifty-one percent. Your personal injury attorney should know the exact percentage and be able to give you an estimate of how much you may receive based on the details of your case.
Recognizing Gross Negligence
Gross negligence is one of the most common types of negligence cases, which is when a defendant acts in a way they either know or should know to cause harm. Let’s use a restaurant’s kitchen as an example.To cook the food they serve, the chefs must boil a lot of water, but a supervisor is unhappy with the speed at which this is done. They demand that the chefs turn up the heat and put more pots onto the stoves. As a result of this, the pots are hotter, and boiling water is sitting in positions that may be dangerous. Should an employee be burned by a pan or the water, they may have a gross negligence case.
A regular negligence case may result in the plaintiff being awarded damages to pay medical bills, but gross negligence is much more severe. This may result in the defendant being ordered by the court to pay punitive damages as well as the usual compensatory damages. The purpose of punitive damages is to deter people from acting in a grossly negligent way.
Learning Vicarious Negligence
While there are many other types of negligence cases, the last one we’ll cover here is vicarious negligence. Sometimes called vicarious liability, this is when another person is held responsible for the actions of another, which is commonly attributed to the actions of an employee.Let’s say that a manager at a construction site decides to ignore some safety protocols to save money and time. In following the manager’s orders, an employee performs an action that harms an innocent person. Instead of suing the employee, the manager may be the defendant since their negligence leads to injury.
Staying Legally Protected
The specifics of what negligence means in the eyes of the law and which type applies to your case varies from state to state and is a big part of the reason why you need to hire a personal injury attorney before filing your suit.They will be able to help you understand not only which type you suffered an injury from but also how much you’re owed, what evidence you need to collect, and more. They may also help you get a fair settlement payout if you’d rather not take your case to court. A good rule of thumb is that if the law is involved somewhere, an attorney should be as well.
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Posted - 10/02/2023
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