1-800-931-7036
Negligence is a term that is used in reference to a legal concept. Without an understanding of negligence, the person that has filed a personal injury lawsuit would lack the ability to grasp the precise meaning of fault.
Required elements in a charge of negligence
• Proof that the defendant had a duty of care towards the plaintiff
• Proof of the fact that the defendant failed to carry out that same duty
• Evidence that the plaintiff has suffered real injuries, as a result of the defendant’s breach
Evidence that could be used to satisfy the requirements of specific proofs
The nature of the defendant’s duty would depend on the circumstances in which the 2 parties (defendant and claimant) had interacted. Personal Injury Lawyer in Hamilton knows that if their interaction had taken place on the road, then the defendant’s duty would have been to obey the traffic laws, and to avoid doing harm to the claimant.
If their interaction had taken place at a location owned or controlled by the defendant, that the duty of care would have called for keeping those owned or controlled premises safe. Evidence for a breach of duty could entail one of 2 types of actions. One action would consist of doing something that was not allowed, or was forbidden by law. An alternate breach would involve the failure on the defendant’s part to carry out an expected action.
Personal Injury Lawyer in Hamilton will have evidence that the plaintiff had suffered any injuries would come from the plaintiff’s medical records. Evidence that those were what would qualify as “real” injuries would need to come from calculation of the value for the medical damages.
The insurance company would use a damages formula, in order to calculate that needed value. In that formula, the total for the medical expenses would become one factor in a multiplication operation. The other factor would be a multiplier.
The figure used as the multiplier would depend on the severity of the reported injuries. For a minor injury that figure would be 1.5. For a catastrophic injury it would be 5 or more. Once the chosen multiplier has been used in the indicated multiplication operation, only on further operation should yield the figure for the damages’ value.
That final operation would involve adding to the product of the multiplication the value for the plaintiff’s lost wages. The calculated estimate for the value would serve as a guide to the adjuster, when he or she needed to come forward with the insurance company’s initial offer.
Adjusters usually show the estimate for the value of a given plaintiff’s injuries to their supervisor. The supervisor then suggests what percentage of that estimated value should be used, during the effort to arrive at the size for the insurer’s initial offer.