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When you hear the words personal injury case, you may think of courtroom dramas or television advertisements. But personal injury law is really about something much more familiar: what happens when one person is hurt because someone else failed to exercise reasonable care.
After a serious injury, your first concerns are usually medical treatment, recovery, and taking care of your family. Before long, however, difficult questions may arise:
Personal injury law provides a way to answer those questions and, when another person or business breached a legal duty and caused harm, to seek compensation for the losses that followed.
Most personal injury cases are based on negligence. Under Wisconsin law, every person has a duty to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances. Ordinary care means the care that a reasonable person would use in the same or similar circumstances.
A person is negligent when that person breaches, or fails to fulfill, that duty by acting carelessly or failing to take reasonable precautions.
To establish a negligence claim, an injured person generally must prove four things:
For example, every driver has a duty to exercise reasonable care while operating a vehicle. That duty includes paying attention, keeping a proper lookout, obeying traffic laws, and controlling the vehicle. A driver who looks at a phone instead of watching the road may breach that duty. If the driver’s failure to exercise reasonable care causes a collision and injures another person, the driver may be legally responsible for the resulting harm.
It is not enough to show that someone was careless. The injured person must also show that the breach of duty caused or contributed to the injury and resulted in actual damages. Those damages may include medical expenses, lost income, physical pain, disability, and the loss of the ability to enjoy everyday activities.
Motor vehicle crashes are among the most common personal injury cases. They may involve cars, pickup trucks, commercial trucks, motorcycles, bicyclists, pedestrians, or multiple vehicles.
Every driver has a duty to exercise reasonable care. A driver may breach that duty by speeding, driving while distracted or impaired, failing to yield, passing unsafely, or failing to keep a proper lookout.
Even when fault appears clear, the insurance process may not be simple. Insurance companies may dispute how the crash happened, argue that an injury was caused by something else, or attempt to settle a claim before the full extent of the injuries is known.
Commercial truck crashes can be particularly complicated. A duty may have been breached not only by the truck driver, but also by the trucking company, a maintenance contractor, the company that loaded the cargo, or another business. Important evidence may include driver logs, inspection and maintenance records, electronic vehicle data, employment records, and company safety policies. A prompt investigation can identify the proper parties and preserve evidence before it disappears.
Property owners and businesses have a duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining their property. A premises liability case may arise when a person is injured because a dangerous condition was not corrected or because no adequate warning was provided.
In Wisconsin, the central question is whether the property owner or the person controlling the property fulfilled the duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances. It may also be necessary to determine whether the owner knew, or reasonably should have known, about the danger and had enough time to correct it or warn visitors.
Evidence can disappear quickly after an incident. A spill may be cleaned, ice may melt, a broken step may be repaired, or security video may be erased. Photographs, witness information, incident reports, inspection records, and video footage can therefore be extremely important.
Manufacturers and others involved in placing products into the marketplace have legal duties concerning product safety. When a defective product causes an injury, the manufacturer, seller, distributor, or another company in the chain of distribution may be liable.
Product liability cases generally involve one or more of the following problems:
Defective products can include household appliances, vehicles, medical devices, children’s products, tools, machinery, industrial equipment, and many other consumer or workplace products.
Wisconsin law establishes specific requirements for proving a product liability claim. Depending on the circumstances, a case may involve strict product liability, negligence, or both. These cases often require engineers or other experts to examine the product, determine how it failed, and explain how the failure caused the injury.
The product should be preserved whenever possible. It should not be repaired, altered, returned, or discarded before an attorney or qualified expert has had an opportunity to inspect it.
Employers have duties to provide a reasonably safe workplace, but most job related injuries are handled through Wisconsin’s workers’ compensation system. Workers’ compensation can provide important benefits without requiring the employee to prove that the employer was negligent.
Sometimes, however, someone other than the employer or a co-worker breached a duty of care and contributed to the injury. That may give the injured worker a separate personal injury claim against what the law calls a third party.
In these situations, the worker may have both a workers’ compensation claim and a third party personal injury claim. This distinction is important because workers’ compensation benefits generally do not compensate an employee for every loss caused by an injury. A third party claim may allow the worker to seek additional compensation, including compensation for pain, suffering, disability, and the broader effect of the injury on the worker’s life.
The interaction between workers’ compensation and a third party claim can be complicated. An experienced attorney can help coordinate the claims and determine which individuals or companies may have breached a legal duty.
Every case is different, but compensation in a personal injury case may include:
The value of a claim depends on many factors, including the seriousness and permanence of the injury, the medical treatment required, the effect on the person’s work and daily life, the available insurance coverage, and the evidence showing whose duty was breached and how that breach caused the injury.
After an injury, you may not know whether the law considers your situation a motor vehicle claim, a premises liability case, a product liability case, or a workplace third party claim. You do not need to make that determination on your own.
At Bremer & Trollop Law Offices, S.C., we represent people, not insurance companies. We listen to what happened, investigate who owed a duty of care and whether that duty was breached, and explain your options in language you can understand.
If you or a family member has been seriously injured, contact Bremer & Trollop Law Offices, S.C. for a consultation. We can help you understand your rights and decide what steps to take next.
If you are recovering from an injury, you need to focus on regaining your health. You should not have to negotiate with stubborn insurance companies or compromise with a defendant.
A Wausau personal injury lawyer could lessen the stress and complications associated with collecting compensation, allowing you to recover fully. Call today to learn more about your options.
