LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142

There are over 500,000 motor vehicle collisions in Canada every year which cause almost 250,000 people to be injured, over 20,000 of which are critical injuries of which about 3,000 are fatalities. There are about 8 deaths every day on Canadian roads and there is a serious injury every 2 minutes resulting in over 100,000 claims for compensation ever year in Canada. If you would like to talk to a Victoria car accident lawyer without further obligation then just use the helpline or send the contact form or email our offices and a Victoria car accident lawyer who deals exclusively in personal injury accident claims will speak to you with free advice and information on how best to preserve your legal rights to compensation for your injuries.

 

Victoria Car Accident Lawyer - Negligence

 

The idea of negligence is one that many lawyers have to deal with. Negligence is a legal concept that often follows cases of injury or accident in which someone or perhaps many people were injured or killed. Accidents can always happen without it being anyone’s fault but in negligence, the implication is that someone was at fault and was the cause of the accident or injury.

Negligence is more than saying “someone was at fault”. In cases of negligence, the lawyer must show that the person believed to be at fault in the accident behaved in a way that was different from the way a reasonable person would behave. It could be that a patient ran a red light, which is the behavior that a reasonable person wouldn’t voluntarily do. It could be an employer’s safety practices which differ from that a reasonable person would expect.

For something to be considered negligence, the Victoria car accident lawyer must show that a “duty of care” existed regarding the incident. A duty of care implies that the person at fault in the accident or injury had a responsibility over the health and welfare of the victim. In a medical situation, the physician owes his or her patient a duty of care to insure the patient is healthy and well to the best of his or her abilities. Drivers on the road owe a duty of care to each and every other driver on the road to drive correctly so as not to cause an accident.

In order to prove negligence, the attorney must also show that a breach of the duty of care happened. This means that there was something in the person who caused the accident or injury’s behavior that fell below acceptable standards. The Victoria car accident lawyer must try and decide what an acceptable standard of behavior is and then determine that the person’s behavior fell below that standard. These things can apply to single individuals, such as a motorist, or can apply to the “behavior” or actions of a company, military establishment or government agency.

The idea behind negligence is that, once it has been proved, the attorney needs to show that the victim suffered some kind of loss during or as a result of the incident. Technically, the loss could be minor, such as losses incurred in suffering pain and anguish as a result of the incident. Alternatively, the losses could be great, such as a major disability that lasts for the victim’s entire life.

The Victoria car accident lawyer has 3 things to consider. He or she needs to consider the cost of “special damages” in the case. Special damages are those damages that automatically have a monetary value, such as the victim’s medical costs, the cost to repair the victim’s car and the cost of lost wages. The attorney simply totals these amounts up to get a monetary value on such things.

Harder to determine are the “general damages”. General damages are things such as the value of the loss of one’s ability to advance in his or her career or the loss of ability to perform a hobby or get around the house by themselves. These things are sometimes difficult to place a money value on but this is what the lawyer must do in order to put these values into the claim.

Punitive damages are not always asked for. These are damages that attempt to punish the person who was at fault in the incident for their behavior. Some behavior is wrong but is not punishable. Behaviors that are particularly egregious might be punished through the use of punitive damages.

When the claim is assembled, the Victoria car accident lawyer then takes the claim and files it with the court system. Sometimes attempts are made to resolve the claim and pay the victim his or her compensation using a legal settlement. Other times the lawyer must take the case to court and place the decision on the claim in the hands of a jury or judge.

LAWYER HELPLINE: ☎ 855 804 7142