A personal injury attorney is the best person to contact if you have recently suffered a personal injury. It goes without saying that our lawyers are some of the best in the state of California and we would love to hear from you to discuss the details of your case. Our lawyers are very well-educated and keep abreast with any and all changes to the case law or legislature as it pertains to personal injury.
Many people who are considering a personal injury lawsuit do not have much exposure to civil law and maybe have questions as to how their case will fit into the grand scheme of things. We are here to help you work through your questions! One of the preliminary considerations in a civil lawsuit is to fully understand how civil law works and how it is broken down into different categories.
To begin, all personal injury actions fall under the heading of “tort law.” You may be unfamiliar with the word “tort.” Tort is a word which was derived from the French word “torte” and it means “wrong.” Thus, a tort action is one to correct a civil wrong which one citizen or company has committed against another. Under the heading of tort law is a wide variety of different causes of action. These include personal injury, defamation, nuisance, interference with trade, products liability, premises liability and many others. Our attorneys deal primarily with personal injury law.
Under the category of personal injury is further categorization based on the defendant’s state of mind when he injured you. Many personal injury actions are filed under the claim of “negligence.” Negligence law refers to a breach of a legal duty by the defendant to act reasonably under the circumstances and to afford the plaintiff due care. A negligent defendant is not acting purposefully toward the plaintiff. Many negligence acts are the result of accidents or absent-minded defendants who forgot to act with care. The negligent defendant typically did not “mean to do it” and was not aiming to injure anyone, it just happened. Notwithstanding his clean conscience, he still must compensate the injured party for their loss.
On the flip side, sometimes a defendant aims and sets out to injure the plaintiff on purpose and acts with malevolence and malice. If this is the case, the plaintiff will want to file a personal injury claim under one of the intentional tort categories: assault, battery, false imprisonment or intentional infliction of emotional distress. These types of torts deal with the defendant who did not harm the plaintiff by “accident,” but actually set out to hurt him or her or someone else. Further, the law allows for what is known as punitive damages. These are damages above and beyond what the plaintiff actually spent in recovery and are designed to punish the defendant for injuring the plaintiff on purpose.
In summation, whether you have been injured intentionally or through the defendant’s negligence, we would love to hear from you. Contact us today we will be happy to review your case!
