There are many ways that Chicago residents can suffer personal injuries. In some situations individuals harm themselves in avoidable accidents. In other cases their harm is caused by the actions or omissions of others.
When a person suffers harm as a result of the actions or inactions of another individual, that harm may result from the actor’s negligence. Negligence can generally be defined as the failure of a party to exercise the same level of care that a reasonable person would have exercised given the circumstances of an event. If action or inaction that causes harm was reasonable given the situation of the injury, then negligence may not be present in the case.
A common cause of personal injury is a person’s involvement in a car accident. If the injured party was hit or involved in the accident because another driver failed to sustain a reasonable standard of care while operating his vehicle, then that driver’s negligence may be found to be at fault. Additionally, if a driver is injured because his vehicle fails to operate properly and the problem is not due to his own failure to maintain the vehicle, the manufacturer or seller of the car may be found negligent if it produced a dangerous product.
Different people may have different interpretations of what reasonable means when determining if negligence contributed to an accident. For that reason, Chicago courts listen to the facts of each case and evaluate those facts against the negligence laws of the state. From that evaluation courts can determine if negligence or another factor caused a party’s harm.
Many accidental injuries occur due to the negligence of others. Accidents on local roads, in medical facilities and on public and private property can all result due to negligence. For those individuals who have suffered personal injury as a result of other people’s negligence, civil causes of action exist that may offer those harmed parties opportunities to recover their accident-related damages.
Source: law.cornell.eu, “Negligence,” Accessed on Oct. 8, 2014
