Three Established Theories of
Personal Injury or Tort Liability

Generally there are three established theories of personal injury or tort liability: negligence, strict liability and intentional misconduct.

1. Negligence occurs when a person’s conduct falls below a legally recognized standard of taking reasonable care under the circumstances to protect others from harm. Persons who act negligently do not intend to cause an accident that injures another person. Instead, their liability develops from careless or thoughtless conduct or a failure to act when a reasonable person under the circumstances would have acted. Negligence is the basis for liability in the majority of personal injury lawsuits, including automobile accidents and medical malpractice.
   
   Proving that someone else was negligent hinges on the following question: Was the party who allegedly caused the injury behaving as carefully as a reasonable person would have behaved under the same circumstances? If not, then that party was negligent and has committed the tort of negligence. Examples of negligence include a reckless driver causing an automobile accident, or a storeowner failing to repair a defective door, thereby causing a customer to fall and be hurt. If a reasonable person would have driven more prudently, or if a reasonable storeowner would have repaired the defective door, then the negligent party could be found liable by a judge or jury.
   
   The outcome of a lawsuit in which negligence is alleged can be difficult to predict because determining how much care a reasonable person would have exercised in the same situation is difficult. The reasonable person standard is vague, imprecise and apt to be interpreted differently by different people. Often, a practice that seemed reasonable in the past may appear unreasonable with the benefit of hindsight. Finding an attorney who has experience with how juries typically interpret the reasonable person standard is, therefore, one of the most important steps in successfully defending a personal injury lawsuit in which the plaintiff alleges that the person acted unreasonably.
2. In the area of Strict Liability, designers and manufacturers are held strictly liable for injuries caused by their defective products. In strict liability cases, the injured person does not have to establish negligence by the manufacturer or designer. Instead, what the injured person needs to show is that the defective product was designed or manufactured in a manner that made it unreasonably dangerous or unsafe when used as intended. Strict liability is an important and growing area of tort law.
   
   Strict liability, applies to very dangerous activities. If someone does something extremely dangerous, such as demolish a building, and someone gets hurt as a result, the injured person can sue for damages without having to prove the defendant acted negligently or with intent to cause harm. The principle behind strict liability lawsuits is that some activities are so dangerous that, in exchange for permission to engage in the activity, the individual must assume total responsibility for any resulting damage.
3. Intentional Misconduct claims of personal injury or tort liability must allege and prove more than just careless actions by another person. It must be alleged and proved that the offending person intended to engage in the offending conduct that he or she engaged in. From this conduct, the law infers and concludes that the offending person intended the consequences of his or her action. Further, in contrast to the negligence theory of liability for personal injury, the plaintiff (alleged victim) alleging an intentional tort does not need to show actual damages to recover. It is important to note that while perpetrators of some intentional torts--such as assault and battery, for example--can be held criminally liable for their actions, a tort or personal injury case is a civil proceeding in court brought by an individual or entity and remains totally separate from any criminal charges brought by the government.
   
   Intentional misconduct is a deliberate action resulting in an injury to another person or damages another person's property. For example, if a manufacturer deliberately sells products it knows to be defective, it is causing harm on purpose. A plaintiff alleging intentional misconduct need not compare the defendant's actions to those of a reasonable person; he or she only must show that the defendant intended his or her actions. In a civil lawsuit in which the plaintiff alleges intentional misconduct, the plaintiff can recover punitive damages in addition to awards for injuries, pain and suffering. Punitive damages, designed to punish people or organizations for unlawful acts, are often very large sums of money. Until recently, there were few limits on the amount of money a jury could award as punitive damages. However, Congress and many state legislatures recently have passed laws putting caps on punitive damage awards in certain types of cases. Even without statutory limits, judges have long had the authority to reduce many types of punitive damage awards. Businesses wanting to avoid paying punitive damages should institute specific safety procedures for their employees to follow to reduce the risk of injury.

Copyright © 2006 Personal Injury Attorney Information.