When you suffer an injury and believe it happened due to someone’s carelessness, it is often difficult to prove unless there were any witnesses or the other party takes responsibility. Attorney at Law Magazine reports that there are several different kinds of negligence and that each can affect a personal injury case in a variety of ways.
Before you can move ahead with your case, familiarizing yourself with several common types of negligence may help you feel more confident about its outcome.
Duty of care
This type of negligence may stem from a client or consumer-business relationship when the client or manufacturer of a product failed to offer you protection with reasonable care. These incidents can vary widely and may include:
- Injury due to a defective product
- A business failing to recall a dangerous product
- A client failing to maintain a building exterior that causes injury
Obligation is key to deciding whether the accused party is responsible for your injury.
Cause in fact
Cause in fact, or actual cause, concerns whether the accused party’s actions or failure to act caused your injury. For example, if the defendant failed to use his or her car’s signals while changing lanes and caused an accident, the court may consider this as cause in fact negligence. In this case, you must prove the injury would not have occurred otherwise.
Proximate cause
You may claim proximate cause in a personal injury case if you believe or can prove the defendant could have prevented your accident. The degree of fault found may affect your case and its value.
The degree of difficulty involved in proving different types of negligence usually depends on the details of the case. This is often true no matter the kind of negligence involved.
