Decatur

Decatur Personal Injury Attorney

What is a Personal Injury and What is The Importance of a Decatur, Georgia Personal Injury Attorney?

What is a Personal Injury?

Personal injury law arises out of a general area of law called tort law. There is a wide range of personal injuries including, car wreck injuries, medical malpractice, slips and calls, parking lot attacks, rape and sexual battery, nursing home abuse, to name just a few. A “tort” is defined very broadly as a civil wrong

In the context of personal injury law, a tort is a careless act that causes injury to another which gives rise to a claim for damages against the “tortfeasor”. When referring to personal injury cases, the word accident is a misnomer because if an event were really an accident this would imply that there was not a careless act.

What Types of Decatur, Georgia Personal Injuries are Included in Georgia Tort Law?

McAleer Law handles many different types of tort injuries that arise in Decatur, Georgia. Most tort injuries are the result of someone’s carelessness. In addition to cases that result from one’s carelessness, there are also intentional torts such as sexual battery (link) or intentional infliction of emotional distress. Cases involving negligence make up the great majority of Decatur, Georgia Personal Injuries occur and includes:

Wrongful Death and Survival Actions; Premises Liability, e.g., slips and trips and falls; Automobile Collision Injuries; Airplane Crashes; Products Liability, etc.

This is, of course, not an exhaustive list.

How Do I Know If Someone has Been Negligent in Causing my Injuries?

If there is a dispute about whether a party has been negligent in causing injury to another, a jury will typically make this determination. Below, are basic principals of Georgia law which a jury is given by a trial judge in a negligence case (Taken from Georgia’s Suggested Pattern Jury Instructions, Fifth Edition):

Ordinary Negligence (Ordinary Diligence)

Ordinary negligence means the absence of or the failure to use that degree of care that is used by ordinarily careful persons under the same or similar circumstances. Before a plaintiff can recover damages from a defendant in a case such as this, there must be injury to the plaintiff resulting from the defendant’s negligence.

Slight Negligence (Extraordinary Diligence)

In general, extraordinary diligence or care is the extreme care and caution that very careful and thoughtful persons use under the same or similar circumstances. (Applied to the preservation of property, extraordinary diligence or care means the extreme care and caution that very careful and thoughtful persons use in securing and preserving their own property.) The absence of such extraordinary diligence or care is termed slight negligence.

Gross Negligence (Slight Diligence)

In general, slight diligence or care is the degree of care that persons of common sense, however inattentive they may be, use under the same or similar circumstances. (Applied to the preservation of property, slight diligence or care means the degree of care that persons of common sense, however inattentive they may be, take of their own property.) The absence of slight care is termed gross negligence.

Children, Due Care by

The term due care, when used in reference to a child of tender years, is such care as the child’s mental and physical capabilities enable the child to exercise in the actual circumstances of the occasion and situation under investigation.

Negligence; One Act Sufficient

The plaintiff must prove that the defendant was negligent in one or more ways alleged in order to recover. It is not necessary for the plaintiff to prove that the defendant was negligent in every way that the plaintiff claims. If you find no negligence at all on the part of the defendant, then the plaintiff’s case against the defendant ends.

Care for Own Safety, Duty to Exercise

Every person has a duty to use ordinary care for his or her own safety. If you should determine from the evidence that the plaintiff failed to use ordinary care and that this failure was the sole proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, then the plaintiff could not recover from the defendant.

Avoidance of Consequences

If the plaintiff, by the exercise of ordinary care, could have avoided the consequences caused by the defendant’s negligence, then the plaintiff is not entitled to recover. In other cases, the defendant is not relieved even though the plaintiff may have contributed to the injury sustained. The plaintiff’s duty to exercise ordinary care to avoid the consequences of the defendant’s negligence does not arise until the defendant’s negligence exists and the plaintiff knew or, in the exercise of ordinary care, should have known of such negligence.

Assumption of Risk

When a person knowingly and voluntarily takes a risk of physical injury, the danger of which is so obvious that the act of taking such risk, in and of itself, amounts to a failure to exercise ordinary care for one’s own safety, that person cannot hold another liable for injuries proximately caused by such action even though the injuries may be in part attributable to the negligence of the other person.

Equal Negligence; No Recovery

If you find that the defendant was negligent, that the plaintiff was also guilty of negligence that contributed to the plaintiff’s injury and damages, and that plaintiff’s negligence was equal to or greater than that of the defendant, then the plaintiff cannot recover.

Comparative Negligence

If you find that the defendant was negligent so as to be liable to the plaintiff and that the plaintiff also was negligent, thereby contributing to the plaintiff’s injury and damage, but that the plaintiff’s negligence was less than the defendant’s negligence, then the negligence of the plaintiff would not prevent the plaintiff’s recovery of damages but would require that you reduce the amount of damages otherwise awarded to the plaintiff in proportion to the negligence of the plaintiff compared with that of the defendant.

Emergency

One who is confronted with a sudden emergency that was not created by one’s own fault and is without sufficient time to determine accurately and with certainty the best thing to be done is not held to the same accuracy of judgment as would be required of that person if he/she had more time for deliberation. The requirement is that the person act with ordinary care under all particular facts and circumstances surrounding the situation.

Imputed Negligence; Generally

For the negligence of one person to be properly placed upon another, the negligent person must be the agent of the person to whom it is attributed.

Imputed Negligence; Children

In an action by an infant, the fault of the parents or of custodians selected by the parents is not allowed to be placed upon the child.

Imputed Negligence; Guests

The negligence, if any, of the driver would not be a defense to a suit by a guest passenger in the car against a third party for an injury, unless the driver’s negligence was the sole proximate cause of the injury.

Proximate Cause; Definition

Proximate cause is that which, in the natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by other causes, produces an event and without which the event would not have occurred. Proximate cause is that which is nearest in the order of responsible causes, as distinguished from remote, that which stands last in causation, not necessarily in time or place, but in causal relation.