A negligence case depends on one person being found negligent in dealing with the other. What establishes negligence may not be seen as obvious at a glance. Without negligence being proved in a lawsuit there is no case and damages cannot be rewarded.
What is negligence?A person is negligent when he or she fails to act like the standard ordinary reasonable person. A critical issue in many cases is how an "ordinary, reasonable person" was expected to act in the particular situation that caused injury. An ordinary, reasonable person can travel down the Interstate at 65 miles per hour. However, if an intense sunlight is present, the same ordinary, reasonable person should reduce his/her speed of travel. Deciding whether a given person has met his/her "ordinary reasonable person" standard is often a matter that resolved by a jury after presentation of evidence and argument during a trial.
What is ‘comparative negligence’?Comparative negligence when it is contended that two or more parties failed to perform at the standard of the "ordinary reasonable person". For example, suppose one person was driving without their lights on in a patch of dense fog on the highway and hit a car. But the car that hit the person was going to fast. When each party in a situation has a degree of negligence in causing an accident, the responsibility to the other person is reduced by the other person’s degree of negligence. A jury might decide that the driver going to fast is 60% responsible while the driver without lights on would be 40% responsible. The state law will determine who will recover what in a case of comparative negligence.
What is proximate cause?Proximate cause happens due to negligence or an intentional wrongful act. In order to win a lawsuit for damages due to negligence or some other wrong, it is essential to plead proximate cause in the complaint and to prove in trial that the negligent act of the defendant was the proximate cause of the damages to the plaintiff. Sometimes there is an intervening cause which comes between the original negligence of the defendant and the injured plaintiff, which will either reduce the amount of responsibility or, if this intervening cause is the substantial reason for the injury, then the defendant will not be liable at all. In criminal law, the defendant's act must have been the proximate cause of the death of a victim to prove murder or manslaughter.
What is an ‘intervening cause’?An intervening cause comes between one act or failure to act which alters the natural and continuous series of events that follows. When an intervening cause is present, the natural chain of events have been changed due to the subsequent act of another, the initial person may be relieved of the responsibility for an injury that is produced. In the example provided for proximate cause, the act of the stranger picking up the glass bottle and throwing it through the window is an intervening cause. The responsibility for injury to the man is shifted and the stranger's act becomes the intervening cause of the man's injury.
This article was written by the
Atlanta Accident Attorneys.
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