If you have suffered an injury in California and are not sure if you have a personal injury case, you will likely be faced with a lot of information about negligence. Why? Because whether or not you have a case depends on whether or not someone was negligent. While many people think they know what this term means, the truth is that it can mean something different from a legal standpoint.
Read on to get the basics about what negligence means and how it affects your injury case. Then contact Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas at 909-982-0707 to request a free legal consultation with a personal injury attorney.
Winning a Personal Injury Case Requires You to Prove That Someone Else Was Negligent
First, let us cover how important negligence is. In order to win a personal injury case, you must be able to show that another party was negligent. Generally speaking, this means that they acted – or did not act – in such a way that caused the injury and that they should have known their actions could potentially lead to an injury.
Understanding What Negligence is Not
Before we get into what negligence is, let us cover what it is not. It is common for people to believe it means that someone is at fault. This is not technically accurate because it is entirely possible for a person to be at fault but not negligent.
For example, if a shelf at a grocery store broke suddenly, causing cans to fall on the floor and injure a customer, is the store negligent? That depends. If the breakage occurred with no notice, the shelf was not overloaded, and the store owner could not have foreseen the accident, then they are not negligent.
On the other hand, if the store owner knew that the shelf was only designed to hold up to 1000 pounds of product and they knowingly had 2000 pounds of product on it, then they would be negligent.
There Are Several Types of Negligence
Now that you understand what negligence is not let us consider what it is. There are actually a few types of negligence, including:
- Gross negligence. This is a severe form of negligence in which the person acting had a total lack of concern for the safety of others.
- Comparative negligence. This applies when more than one party has fault in an accident. For example, in a car accident, it is often the case that both parties were partially at fault.
- Contributory negligence. This involves a person being responsible for the situation that caused their own injuries.
- Vicarious liability negligence. This is when a person is held responsible for the actions of another entity. This could be their child, their pet, or their employee.
As you can see, there are many types of negligence. Proving negligence is a sometimes difficult but always necessary part of a personal injury case. If you believe you have a case, contact Law Offices of Fernando D. Vargas at 909-982-0707 for a free legal consultation.
