Legal Cause of an Injury

The immediate cause is the relationship between an event and an injury. The criterion for determining whether there is an immediate cause is predictability. An offence must be a foreseeable consequence of the defendant`s conduct in order to establish an immediate cause. In other words, the defendant must have been negligent in causing foreseeable harm to the foreseeable victims of the injury. If the plaintiff had been harmed independently of the defendant`s conduct, the defendant`s conduct was not actually the cause of the plaintiff`s injury. The defendant is therefore not liable for damages caused by the plaintiff. Understanding the legal concepts surrounding a personal injury case can be overwhelming without the right legal counsel. Fortunately, the attorneys at DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC have years of experience in a variety of personal injury cases. Whether you have been injured in a car accident, on property by someone or by a doctor, we can investigate your situation and help you determine how to proceed. If a person is injured due to the negligence of another person or company, they can compensate for economic and non-financial damages resulting from the negligence. Among the elements that the plaintiff suing for negligence must prove is the fact that the defendant`s breach of duty was the real and immediate cause of his breaches.

He must also prove duty, dereliction of duty and damages. The formal Latin term for «but for» (cause indeed) causality, is sine qua non causality. [2] It is not enough to prove that a party owes you a duty of care or has breached its duty of care. In addition, it is not enough to prove that you have suffered damage and injury in an accident. You must prove that the party`s conduct was a «direct and immediate cause» of your damages in order to succeed in your claim for infringement. Causality can have several levels, depending on the facts of a case and the number of people involved. This is one of the crucial elements in a personal injury case. To be compensated, the victim must prove that the acts (or omissions) of the defendant caused his damage. Since causation is very easy to show and doesn`t assign blame (but you wouldn`t have crushed your car for rain – rain isn`t morally or legally guilty, but it`s still a cause), there`s a second test to determine whether an action is close enough to damage in a «chain of events.» to be a legally culpable cause of the damage.

This test is called immediate cause, from the Latin proxima causa. Causation is an essential legal element in cases of personal injury. It refers to the causal relationship between one person`s behavior and another person`s injury. Before discussing the defence in a personal injury case, it is important to note that you may be liable for injuries when the extent of the plaintiff`s injuries could not have been foreseen. Although it seems contradictory to the point just raised, under the «eggshell claimant doctrine,» you must take the claimant as you find it. The actions of the person (or entity) who owes you a duty must be sufficiently related to your violations for the law to assume that the person caused your violations in the legal sense. If someone`s actions are a distant cause of your injury, they are not an immediate cause. However, if your injury did not occur «for» someone else`s actions, you can usually conclude that there was immediate causation. Usually, it`s a simple question.

There are several competing theories of immediate cause. Most personal injury claims are based on negligence. Negligence is the failure to exercise due diligence in a particular situation. The degree of care is based on what a reasonably prudent person would have done in a similar situation. Example: You are in a store and the item you want to buy is in a hallway blocked by a sign that says «slippery floor – stay off the ground». You decide to reach to get your item, which is almost an arm`s length away. When you reach, your feet move down the aisle, and you slip and fall and injure your hip. A court may decide that the deal was negligent, how it blocked the driveway, and that you were 0% to blame. The court could also decide that because you ignored a warning, you were 10% guilty, 50% guilty, 90% guilty, or even completely guilty. Regardless of the percentage, it will be deducted from your recovery.

So if you have $10,000 in damages and you`re 25% in debt, you`ll only get back $7,500. It is actually a cause of causation according to the law. They must gather evidence such as expert testimony and other evidence that the violation caused by the guilty party was the sole cause of the plaintiff`s injuries. First, you need to prove the cause of the actual causation. In other words, can you prove a direct link between the breach of duty of care and the accidental injuries that indicate that the defendant caused them? The first element of the criterion is met if the injured person belonged to a group of persons who could be expected to be at risk of injury as a result of the action. For example, a pedestrian as an expected sidewalk user falls into the category of persons who are endangered by driving on a sidewalk, while a driver who is distracted by another driver who is driving on the sidewalk and therefore crashes into a utility pole, is not. The law divides causality into two categories, «actual cause» and «immediate cause.» The officer`s actions would therefore not be the legal cause of Joe`s injuries. Called the «scope of risk» test[9] by journalists in the second and third reformulations of tort law, the term «risk rule» was coined by the dean of the University of Texas School of Law, Robert Keeton. [10] The rule reads as follows: «The actor`s liability is limited to bodily injury resulting from risks rendered criminal by the actor`s conduct.» [11] The operational question is: «What were the particular risks that made an actor`s behaviour negligent?» If the injury is not due to any of these risks, there can be no recovery. Two examples illustrate this principle: In addition, you must illustrate the defendant`s actions that caused the plaintiff`s injuries, or at least the defendant`s negligence.

This includes the actual cause, the legal cause, and the immediate cause. However, not all cases of bodily injury have an immediate cause. For example, if the driver mentioned above swerves to neglect the negligent driver, but later crashes a few blocks away due to a near-crash stress response, the cause of his accident would be removed. This direct cause test examines the facts of the case and considers the impact of the defendant`s actions on the outcome. If the defendant`s actions were foreseeable and relate sufficiently closely to the accident, most courts will find that the plaintiff has discharged the burden of proof of causation. Sometimes the actions of the person who has been hurt can be the cause of their own injuries. In most cases of personal injury, you must prove causation by showing that the defendant`s actions were not what a reasonable person would do in the situation. This is called neglect. Other States use the «essential factor» test in the context of causation.

According to this rule, the court will consider whether the defendant`s acts or omissions were a material factor in causing the damage. In jurisdictions that follow the material factor test, a material factor is one that contributes significantly to the occurrence of an infringement. An act contributes significantly to this if its causal effects are effective up to the time of the infringement. An act or omission that has only a minimal impact on the occurrence of an injury is not a material factor and is not considered the cause of the violation. When examining the immediate cause, it is usually considered whether the injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the negligent conduct. If this is the case, the plaintiff has passed the proximate cause test and may charge the defendant for his injuries in the claim. New York`s personal injury law operates on the basis of what is known as «comparative fault.» This means that when assessing guilt and therefore damages, a court will consider whether the defendant is less than 100% responsible because your behavior also contributed to your own injury. The defendant is liable for lesser damages if you contributed to your own damages. In the example above, a reasonable person could predict that a broken step could trip and fall someone.

Thus, if the owner of the apartment has done nothing to repair the step, the behavior of the owner is the immediate cause of the person`s injury. The case is also used in criminal law. For example, under the probable cause doctrine, the police must have reasonable grounds to commit a crime in order to arrest someone.