In general, negligent conduct is recklessness that leads to injuries to someone else. It could be an behavior, like thoughtlessly knocking a rock off a rooftop, or a failure to react, like a landlord who doesn’t repair a broken or cracked stair. A negligent action generally creates the justification for injury legal cases.

To be able to bring a legal case for negligent conduct, the plaintiff (the individual filing the personal injury lawsuit) must show four things: That the defendant (the person or entity being sued) owed the plaintiff a duty of due care; that the defendant failed to exercise due care towards the plaintiff (i.e. breached the duty); that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s harm; and that the injured party suffered damages as a result.

Duty of care: The injured party has to prove that the defendant had a duty of due care toward the plaintiff. Someone has a duty to avoid causing injury to another if a reasonable man or woman in the same situation could foresee that an act (or failure to behave) may result in harm. Some instances are very clear. We all know that someone may be injured if we run a red light, so we have a duty of reasonable care to follow traffic regulations and signals. Other instances are more challenging. If a property owner has a private swimming pool in a fenced yard, does he have a duty to prevent a neighbor child from climbing the fence and accidentally drowning in the pool? How much care would a reasonable individual take in that scenario? In each circumstance, the conditions concerning the injuries play an important role in determining whether or not a defendant had a duty of care towards the injury victim.

Breach of Duty: The injury victim needs to demonstrate that the accused failed to carry out their duty of reasonable care. For example, an ordinary man or woman could foresee that a truck full of dynamite may ignite, so somebody who parks such a vehicle in a crowded parking lot has breached the duty of care to the other people nearby. If the vehicle ignites, the driver may very well be guilty of negligence. A person might possibly also foresee that a car that isn’t fixed adequately may malfunction, so if the brakes on a poorly maintained car fail and the car hits a young child, the owner of the car might have breached the duty of due care to that child. Each and every car owner has a duty to maintain the car in a safe condition. Alternatively, if the owner routinely maintains and repairs the car and the brakes failed because the brakes were faulty or the mechanic made a mistake, the owner did not breach a duty of reasonable care, though the brake manufacturer or the mechanic may be liable.

Cause: The plaintiff must show that the negligent persons breach of duty brought about the damage for which the injury victim is suing. Many times causation is apparent. If you run a traffic light and hit a person, you plainly caused the harm. If the pedestrian’s elderly mother has a heart attack and dies when she hears of her daughter’s injury, did you result in that injury? Most likely not, but those are the kinds of challenges that have to be resolved in a negligence legal action. There could also be issues about what damage was caused by an accident. People often have more than one accident in their lives, so if somebody has had two prior back injuries, what injury to the back was caused by the most recent fall down a flight of stairs?

Damages: Damages in a negligent conduct claim try to put the injured party in the same posture he or she would be in if the accident hadn’t happened. A injured party must prove the economic value of his or her injuries. For example, if someone is disabled and may no longer work, a calculation of damages would consider the career of the plaintiff and the amount he or she would have earned during the time left in a normal working career. Damages would also include medical costs and estimated costs for medical treatment, special accommodations, and assisted living.

In some scenarios negligent parties are accountable for negligent conduct as of the operation of law, and not because they specifically caused an injury. For instance, since an employer is held to blame for injuries attributable to employees during work, UPS may be liable if a UPS driver has an accident while making deliveries. A hospital may be held accountable for injury caused by only one nurse. Plaintiffs generally make claims against several defendants to make sure there will be enough assets (money) to pay a judgment.

If you’ve been the victim of a serious car accident in Maryland, you need the advice of an experienced Maryland personal accident lawyer. Talk to a local Maryland personal accident lawyer about your options.