Proving your Kansas City personal injury happened as the result of negligence could make the difference between winning and losing your case. According to online legal library, AllLaw.com, negligence is the legal concept that forms the framework of fault in most personal injury cases. Essentially, it is a failure to take reasonable care under the circumstances leading to an injury or harm to another person.
According to personal injury lawyer Jesse Tanksley of Mann Wyatt Tanksley Injury Attorneys, there are four criteria that must be met to prove negligence in a personal injury case.
1. Establish duty of care
“It’s a duty or obligation to do or not do something that could cause harm to someone else,” Tanksley said.
In legal terms, duty of care refers to the responsibility one person has to avoid causing harm to another. As the plaintiff, you would need to establish that the other involved party or parties had a duty of care in the situation in which your injury occurred.
2. A breach of the duty of care
Once you establish that the defendant had a duty of care, you must then show how they breached that duty by doing something they shouldn’t have done or by failing to do something they should have done. For instance, if a school bus driver fails to stop at a Stop sign, they are breaching the duty of care for the children on the bus, the other drivers on the road, and potentially any pedestrians crossing the street.
3. Causation
“If you can establish that the defendant breached the duty of care, you then have to prove that their actions led directly to the fourth criterion, injuries or damages,” Tanksley said.
4. Injuries or damages
Injuries are any physical harm caused as a direct result of the breach of the duty of care. Damages have a broader definition. They include any lasting mental or monetary effects occurring as a result of the breach of duty of care.
It’s vital to understand that all four criteria must be met in order to have a negligence case.
“If you don’t have causation, you don’t have a negligence case. If you don’t have damages, you don’t have a negligence case,” Tanksley explained.
This can seem like an incredibly daunting process but you don’t have do it alone. The experienced personal injury attorneys at Mann Wyatt Tanksley Injury Attorneys will work with you and make sure you build the strongest case possible to protect your rights.
Contact a Kansas City Personal Injury Attorney Immediately
If you’ve sustained a personal injury in the Kansas City area, call the attorneys at Mann Wyatt Tanksley Injury Attorneys today. With more than 75 years of combined litigation experience, they will fight to get you the compensation you deserve.
Request a free consultation with our team of Kansas City personal injury attorneys or contact us directly at (877) 768-2400.
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