If you have experienced an accident that resulted in injury due to some form of negligence outside your control, you may wonder if you have a personal injury case on your hands. You are also probably curious about what is required in a personal injury case, what does not count, and more.

Discover the facts about personal injury, what constitutes a personal injury, and why having a personal injury lawyer on your side is the best way to ensure proper compensation for your injury.

What Is Considered a Personal Injury?

Personal injury is an injury incurred because of someone else’s negligence. There are a million and one ways you can become injured because of someone else’s doing, but some common examples include:

• Car accident due to the other driver violating traffic laws
• Slip-and-fall accident due to a company not properly notifying the public of hazard(s) on the ground
• Workplace accident due to negligence on the company’s part (requiring employees to use outdated equipment, not providing sufficient safety gear, having a building that is not up to code, etc.)
• Medical malpractice injury due to a provider’s negligence during care, treatment, or a procedure
• Nursing home abuse injury due to the staff’s negligence of a resident
• Product liability accidents due to a defective product being unreasonably dangerous or due to a product not featuring adequate warnings of the dangers of use

Additionally, personal injury does not only include bodily harm. Personal injury can also apply if negligence leads to mental distress like PTSD or damage to the plaintiff’s personal property.

What Is Required for Something to Be Considered a Personal Injury?

Getting hurt on private or even public property is not enough to file a claim against a person or entity. There are certain criteria that must be met to successfully pursue a personal injury claim.

In order for an incident to be considered negligent and damaging, the following must be true:

The incident required a duty of care by the defendant.

“Duty of care” is a legal term for the care a person or entity must show to prevent harm to others. Examples of “duty of care” include:

• Driving carefully so as not to cause a wreck and injure someone while operating a vehicle
• Providing proper warnings and notifications to property visitors of a hazard (think “Caution: Wet floor” signs in stores and public spaces)
• Equipping employees with up-to-date tools and safety equipment to prevent injuries at the office or on the job
• Providing quality care to every patient throughout the entirety of a treatment
• Providing quality care to nursing home residents throughout the duration of their stay at a facility
• Providing adequate warnings of a dangerous product for sale or ensuring quality control so that a faulty product does not make it to the public

The defendant did not fulfill their duty of care.

A personal injury case requires the defendant to breach their duty of care, weakening the safety of people on their property or in their care. Examples include:

• Reckless driving, distracted driving, knowingly driving a malfunctioning vehicle, etc.
• Mopping the floor of a store during store hours but not informing shoppers of the now-slippery surface
• Knowingly requiring employees to work in unsafe conditions
• Providing substandard medical care that is negligent enough for a patient to suffer an injury
• Providing substandard nursing care to a nursing home resident wherein the resident suffers from negligence or injury
• Producing a faulty product and selling it to the public or selling a dangerous product without proper warning

The absence of care directly caused the plaintiff’s injury.

In a personal injury case, it must be true that the defendant’s failure to fulfill their duty of care directly led to harm or injury for the plaintiff. In cases where a plaintiff is injured because of their own negligence or a reason unrelated to the absence of care on the defendant’s part, they likely do not have a case to pursue.

The plaintiff incurred injury because of the defendant’s absence of care.

This may seem obvious, but in order to pursue a personal injury lawsuit, the plaintiff must suffer an injury that is directly caused by some type of negligence.

The following are examples of what does not count in a personal injury case:

• The plaintiff incurs injury, even though the defendant took all the proper precautions or exhibited sufficient care to prevent an accident.
• The plaintiff incurs an injury due to their own negligence or careless behavior, not because of the defendant’s actions.
• The plaintiff manipulates the conditions of the situation to pursue a personal injury case (i.e., moves a caution sign away from a hazardous area or drives recklessly in the hopes of getting hit by another driver).
• The defendant did not fulfill their duty of care, but the plaintiff did not suffer an injury.

Have you suffered an injury or property damage due to someone else’s negligence or inability to fulfill their duty of care? Talk to the personal injury attorneys at Clark, Smith & Sizemore.

If you have suffered injury or damage because of someone else’s lack of care, you deserve compensation. At Clark, Smith & Sizemore, our team is here to fight for you and advocate for you at every turn to ensure you walk away with the best results possible. Call us today for a free consultation: 478-254-5040.

Thanks for checking out part 1 in our 6-part series about personal injury. Stay tuned for all of our personal injury articles, which include:

• What Is Considered a Personal Injury?
• Do I Need a Personal Injury Attorney? And Other FAQs
• What Is a Catastrophic Injury?
• Personal Injury vs. Workplace Accident
• Should I Hire a Car Accident Attorney After a Bad Wreck?
• Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney