ORLANDO, FL, December 07, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- If you have been harmed (or a loved one has died) due to the negligence or wrongdoing of someone else, you may have a valid personal injury case. Many factors have to be taken into consideration when determining if you do have a personal injury case. Upon meeting with an experienced, knowledgeable personal injury lawyer, he/she will be able to determine whether or not you have a valid legal claim against some other party or parties.
Determining legal responsibility for an accident or injury (referred to as "liability") can be complicated, but often rests on whether someone was careless or negligent. Sometimes it is crystal clear that some other party caused your injury such as a defective product blowing up in your home and burning you or a drunk driver running a red light and hitting you. However, in order to "win" a personal injury case you must legally prove the other party was at fault; that is where your personal injury attorney comes in.
Determining Liability in a Personal Injury Case
Most accidents happen because someone was careless. The basic rule is: If one person involved in an accident was less careful than another, the less careful one must pay for at least a portion of the damages suffered by the more careful one. The following is a list of some basic tenets of personal injury law:
- If the injured person was where he or she was not supposed to be, or somewhere he or she should have expected the kind of activity which caused the accident, the person who caused the accident might not be liable because that person had no "duty" to be careful toward the injured person.
- If the injured person was also careless, his or her compensation may be reduced by the extent such carelessness was also responsible for the accident. This is known as comparative negligence and only applies to certain states.
- If a negligent person causes an accident while working for someone else, the employer may also be legally responsible for the accident.
- If an accident is caused on property that is dangerous because it is poorly built or maintained, the owner of the property is liable for being careless in maintaining the property, regardless of whether he or she actually created the dangerous condition.
- If an injury is caused by a defective product, the manufacturer and seller of the product are both liable even if the injured person doesn't know which one was careless in creating or allowing the defect, or exactly how the defect happened.
If you live in the Winter Park or Orlando area of Florida and think you may have a personal injury case, please visit the website of The Law Offices of Michael V. Barszcz, M.D., J.D. today at http://www.themdjd.com/ to learn more about personal injury law or to schedule a consultation.
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