Determining Duty of Care and Negligence
Under tort law, negligence is a cause of action that may qualify for compensation in situations where another party’s carelessness contributed either to injury to your person or damage to your property. One of the most important considerations in identifying negligence is determining what duty of care was owed to you by the other party.What Is Negligence?
Imagine you’re forced to come to a sudden stop while driving a car and the person who’s been tailgating you for the last five miles rams right into your rear bumper. Is that negligence on the part of the person who hit your car? It’s quite possible that a Philadelphia accident lawyer from Metzger & Kleiner could make a strong case that negligence was indeed involved in this accident.Now, suppose that your brake lights have been broken for the past three months and, despite a mechanical violation citation, you still haven’t gotten around to fixing them. The car behind you is driving at a safe distance from your vehicle, but when you come to a sudden stop, it still careens into you because the driver did not see the red lights that would have indicated you’d stepped on your brakes. Is that negligence? Your personal injury lawyer may still be able to make a case for negligence, but the circumstances surrounding this situation are a lot more complex.
Proving that a careless act or omission contributed to your damages is not always a straightforward exercise. A finding of negligence rests on demonstrating the existence of these five elements:- A duty of care owed to the plaintiff by the defendant
- A violation of this duty through either action or inaction
- A causal connection between that violation and the resulting damages
- The fact that the defendant should have foreseen these consequences
- The conclusion that the defendant’s violation caused the plaintiff harm
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