One factor that determines whether an accident was simply the result of bad luck or whether it is grounds for a personal injury lawsuit is if there is evidence of negligence on the part of someone other than the injured party that caused the accident. Duty of care means that it was the defendant’s responsibility to take reasonable measures to prevent the accident that caused the injury. When you visit a personal injury attorney one of the first things they will try to figure out is with whom the duty of care rested. In other words, who could have prevented the accident and was responsible for taking precautions to prevent it? Here is how the concepts of negligence and duty of care apply in various kinds of personal injury cases.
Car Accidents
In personal injury cases involving a car accident, negligence is often synonymous with fault for the accident, and the duty of care is synonymous with following traffic safety laws. Your car injury attorney will review documents from the insurance company to see how the insurance company assigned fault for the accident and will also review any reports or tickets issued by police. The best personal injury attorney will not stop at taking those documents at face value, though. Your attorney might see evidence of negligence that the police and insurance companies did not note. In fact, you might still have grounds for a personal injury lawsuit even if the police did not issue any tickets.
Medical Malpractice
If a patient comes to a doctor’s office or hospital seeking medical treatment, then the doctor is automatically assumed to have a duty to provide care to the patient. A big question in medical malpractice lawsuits is whether the doctor who treated the plaintiff breached the standard of care. Medical malpractice attorneys consult with physicians who work in the same specialty as the defendant to determine what a reasonable standard of care would be in circumstances similar to the ones in which the plaintiff sustained the injury, ion order to determine if the c are fell below the standard of care.
Premises Liability
Premises liability lawsuits are based on the tenet that the owner of a place of business or piece of land has a duty to make the premises safe for their intended use. Slip and fall accidents at stores and restaurants are a classic example of premises liability lawsuits. In North Dakota, recreational use is an exception to the usual rules about duty of care.
Contact O’Keeffe O’Brien Lyson Attorneys About Personal Injury Cases
Determining the duty of care is an important part of every personal injury lawsuit. Contact O’Keeffe O’Brien Lyson Attorneys in Fargo, North Dakota or call 701-235-8000 or 877-235-8002 and ask to speak to Tim O’Keeffe, Tatum O’Brien, or Sara Monson to discuss your case.
