If you or somebody you love has sustained an injury due to the negligent actions of another person, you will likely be able to recover compensation for your losses. There are various elements that must be in place in order for a personal injury claim to be successful in court, and one of those elements is proving causation between a person’s breach of duty and the actual injury. Here, we want to go more in-depth on the elements of a personal injury case, particularly proving causation.
The Elements of Negligence for a Personal Injury Case
In order to understand why proving causation matters, we briefly have to review the four elements of negligence. These four elements must be present in order for a person to successfully recover compensation for their personal injury claim.
- Duty. It must be established that there was a duty of care between the plaintiff (the injured party) and the defendant (the alleged negligent party). This duty of care will look different depending on the situation. For example, the manager of a grocery store will have a duty to ensure that their premises are safe for those who have a right to be there. This includes making sure that all spills are cleaned up on the floor. Looking at another type of scenario, every driver on the roadway owes a duty to others around them to ensure that they operate their vehicle safely.
- Breach. The next step is establishing that the defendant breached their duty of care somehow. This breach of duty will look different depending on the situation at hand. Drivers who operate their vehicles while distracted by their cell phones will likely have breached the duty of care to others on the road. Grocery store managers will breach their duty of care if they fail to promptly clean up a spill they know about.
- Causation. After establishing that there has been a breach of duty, it must be shown that this breach directly caused the injuries and damages to the plaintiff.
- Damages. The last step is showing that the plaintiff suffered some sort of monetary loss as a result of the incident. This can include property damage, medical bills, lost wages, and more.
Proving Causation for Your Case
Causation is a particularly challenging part of proving negligence in these cases. That is because when most people see these cases and that a person breached their duty of care, they automatically assume that that other party was negligent. However, that is not necessarily the case. Just because somebody is doing something careless or something that violates their duty of care does not mean that their actions directly led to the injuries of another person.
There are various ways that a personal injury lawyer in Pennsylvania can work to prove causation. This will involve gathering extensive evidence that can be used to show insurance carriers or a personal injury jury exactly what happened. An attorney needs to link the breach of duty to the injuries, and they can use:
- Photos were taken at the scene of the incident
- Video surveillance from nearby cameras
- Statements from eyewitnesses
- Statements from those directly involved
In some situations, an attorney may need to work with accident reconstruction experts who can use the evidence gathered as well as computer 3D modeling to put together a timeline of what likely happened, given the facts of the case so far.
Please understand the importance of working with a skilled legal team to help you with every aspect of these four elements of negligence. An attorney will have the resources necessary to go head to head with insurance carriers and be able to present your case to a jury.