What Qualifies as Personal Injury?
December 15, 2024
When many people think of injuries, they imagine broken bones, concussions, and other kinds of physical harm. However, in the legal realm, personal injury lawsuits deal with more than just physical injuries — they can be brought for physical, emotional, and reputational harm. What qualifies as personal injury? Here’s a closer look.
Personal injury lawsuits aren’t just about physical injuries. They also help plaintiffs recover compensation for emotional distress, psychological trauma, and even damage to their reputation.
The Legal Concept of Personal Injury
Securing Justice for Injured People
Personal injury is an area of the law designed to help people recover compensation after being harmed by another person’s negligence or intentional actions. It is sometimes called tort law. The compensation an injured person receives in a personal injury lawsuit is referred to as “damages.” Damages are meant to compensate an injured person for specific losses. Typically, there are two broad categories of damages you can recover in a personal injury case:
- Economic Damages: Compensation for losses you can quantify, like medical expenses
- Non-Economic Damages: Compensation for intangible losses like physical pain.
Car accident lawsuits are among the most common personal injury cases. If another driver causes an accident and you suffer life-altering injuries, you shouldn’t have to figure out how to handle those injuries alone. A personal injury lawyer may take your case and advocate for you to receive compensation for your medical costs, past and future lost income, pain and suffering, and other losses.
Common Kinds of Personal Injury Cases
There are more types of personal injury cases than many people realize. While this list isn’t exhaustive, below are some common examples of types of personal injury cases:
Vehicle and Pedestrian Accidents
Many of our clients come to us after being severely injured in a car accident or other kind of vehicle accident. In the personal injury arena, different types of vehicle/pedestrian accident cases come with their own challenges. For example, accidents with commercial trucks may be caused by one party — the truck driver — but trucking companies, repair shops, truck manufacturers, and even loading companies may share liability.
Dog Bites
Dog owners are responsible for ensuring their animals do not harm others. Dog bites can lead to significant pain, disfigurement, long-term disabilities, and even death. A person injured in a dog attack may choose to file a personal injury lawsuit against the dog’s owner to cover medical costs, lost income, and other losses related to the attack.
Assaults and Other Types of Intentional Harm
If someone who physically attacks you is arrested and criminally prosecuted, you have received some level of justice. However, you might still be grappling with financial losses from the attack. In this case, a personal injury lawsuit might be a way to hold the perpetrator financially responsible.
Defamation
Defamation lawsuits aim to hold other parties accountable for damage to your reputation, but you must be able to prove your reputation suffered damage. For example, if you are a landscaper and a competitor launches an ad campaign falsely claiming you have destroyed multiple clients’ gardens, you may have a defamation case. If your legal team can prove you lost income as a direct result of the campaign, you might be able to recover compensation making up for that income loss.
Premises Liability Cases/Slip and Fall Incidents
Business owners and private property owners who invite visitors are responsible for maintaining a safe environment. If they do not, they may be held liable for injuries to visitors. Slip and fall cases are some of the best-known types of premises liability cases.
Medical Malpractice
Not every medical error constitutes medical malpractice. However, if you suffer an injury because a medical provider failed to meet a certain standard of care, you may be able to recover compensation through a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Defective Products
Businesses and individuals who design and manufacture products have a responsibility to ensure those products are safe. If you get hurt because a product is defective, a personal injury lawsuit may help you get the compensation you deserve.
Nursing Home Injuries
If your loved one is in a nursing home, you trust the facility’s staff members to behave in a way that supports and protects their health. If your loved one is a victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, you may be able to file a nursing home injury lawsuit on their behalf.
Birth Injuries
Some babies suffer major injuries at birth. Sometimes, these injuries are unavoidable. However, in many cases, serious birth injuries happen as a result of medical negligence.
If you have suffered an injury because of another person’s actions, we want to hear from you. Call Wapner Newman at (215) 569-0900 for a free consultation and case review.
Can Someone File a Personal Injury Lawsuit if They Were Partially at Fault?
In some personal injury cases, the fault lies squarely with one party. However, in many instances, both involved parties contributed to the accident in some way. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey are modified comparative negligence states, meaning that if you were partially to blame for your injury, you can still recover compensation — as long as you were not more at fault than the other party. However, there’s a bit of a catch: any compensation you receive is reduced by your percentage of fault.
For example, imagine you get into a car accident where you are 20% at fault. In this case, if a court awards you $100,000 in compensation, that amount would be reduced by 20%, meaning you would end up with $80,000 in compensation.
The Importance of Proving Negligence
If you’ve suffered any kind of personal injury, you know the at-fault party harmed you. However, insurance companies and civil courts can’t just take your word for it — you need an experienced personal injury lawyer to prove your case. Most people who file personal injury lawsuits are doing so because another person, business, or other entity was negligent.
In general terms, negligence means behaving carelessly or without consideration for how your actions could affect others. However, in personal injury law, there are a few elements of negligence that must be present for you to win your case:
- Duty of Care: The other party had an obligation to act in a way that would avoid harm.
- Breach of Duty: The other party did not fulfill that duty.
- Causation: The breach of duty caused you injuries.
- Damages: Because of your injuries, you have compensation to collect.
For example, when they’re driving, other drivers have a duty of care to pay attention and follow traffic laws. If a fellow driver is texting behind the wheel, they have violated that duty of care. If they run a red light and hit you, their breach of the duty of care caused your injuries. And if you have hospital bills because of those injuries, you have damages to collect.
Are All Personal Injury Cases Based on Negligence?
The majority of personal injury cases are based on negligence. However, there are two less common grounds for bringing a personal injury lawsuit:
Strict Liability Cases
In Pennsylvania, some kinds of personal injury cases are based on strict liability. With a strict liability case, the defendant can be found liable even if they were not negligent. One example of a strict liability personal injury case is a product liability lawsuit. If you can prove that a given product had a defect and that defect directly caused your injuries, you will likely have a strong case — there’s no need to prove that the designer or manufacturer acted negligently.
Cases Involving Intentional Wrongs
Sometimes, a plaintiff will choose to file a lawsuit against someone who has caused them (or a loved one) intentional harm. Often, a plaintiff will wait until the criminal case against the defendant has been completed before pursuing civil action. There’s a critical reason why criminal cases generally come first and not the other way around: the standard of proof for a criminal case is higher than that for a civil case.
- In a criminal case, a judge or jury must find that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
- In a civil case, the defendant is found responsible if a “preponderance of evidence” is against them.
For example, if someone attacked you in an alleyway and left you with serious injuries, it may make sense to wait for a criminal trial before filing a civil lawsuit. If the defendant has already been convicted of the assault, a civil court will be more likely to rule in your favor. The lower standard of proof in civil cases also means that crime victims may be able to win a civil lawsuit even if the perpetrator was found not guilty in criminal court.
Have You Suffered Harm Because of Someone Else’s Actions?
Wapner Newman Is Here for You
Unless you’re a personal injury lawyer, it’s impossible to tell whether your situation may be grounds for a successful lawsuit. There are many different factors that shape the potential value of your case, and the right attorney can examine those factors and help you make the best decision going forward.
At Wapner Newman, our team has been dedicated to seeking justice for injured people in Pennsylvania and New Jersey since 1978. Our combination of creative thinking, aggressive representation, and solution-focused mindset has helped countless clients — and our team may be able to help you, too.
Think you may have a personal injury case? Call Wapner Newman at (215) 569-0900 to schedule a free case evaluation.