How Does Duty of Care Affect My Florida Personal Injury Case?

If you are considering filing a Florida personal injury lawsuit, it is important that you understand some fundamental facts about the duty of care, namely, what it is, how it could affect your claim, how attorneys can use it to establish negligence, and how it could help you obtain financial compensation for your accident-related losses.

What Is Duty of Care?

For most people, their duty of care is merely their legal obligation to behave in a rational manner so as to minimize the potential for harming others. This legal obligation, however, can manifest itself in many different people, including anyone behind the wheel, landlords, tenants, guests, clients, employees, patients, and medical professionals.

When a person fails to uphold their duty of care, they are able to be held accountable for any form of damage caused by that negligence. Consequently, in order to establish their negligence, it is essential to prove that a duty of care existed between the people involved. If no duty of care can be proven, you may not have a viable Tampa personal injury claim.

How an Attorney Establishes Fault for a Claim

Proving negligence in a personal injury claim can be very difficult, which is why you should always seek legal representation. In order to determine fault for a claim of personal injury, you are going to need a skilled attorney who is familiar with the best way to collect evidence that proves the four basic elements of negligence, including: 

Duty of Care

Proving the other person owed you a duty of care. Depending on the circumstances of your particular case, this could mean a number of different things, like proving a professional association, that you were driving on the same road at the same time, or that you were an invited guest on the person’s property.

Breach of Duty

Showing that the duty of care was violated by proving that someone else who has similar training or background, in the same situation, would have behaved in a different manner in order to prevent anyone from being harmed. For instance, if the negligent party blew through a stop sign without actually coming to a full stop and, as a result, crashed into a vehicle that was already in the intersection. We can safely say that a reasonable person in that same situation would have stopped at the stop sign and waited their turn, thus preventing any harm from coming to anyone. 

Causal Link

Presenting evidence that the violation of the duty of care is directly responsible for your injuries. Unfortunately, it isn’t enough to just prove the breach. Your Tampa personal injury attorney also has to show that if that duty had not been violated, you would not have sustained any injuries. For instance, using the above example, if the driver had not blown past the stop sign, then she or he wouldn’t have crashed into another vehicle, causing the accident that produced the injuries. 

Damages Resulted

Demonstrating you experienced both non-economic and economic losses and damages due to your accident-related injuries, like lost wages, medical expenses, and pain and suffering.

The Florida personal injury attorneys at Fulgencio Law are happy to provide a free legal consultation concerning your claim. 

If you or a family member sustained an injury during a car accident that was caused by someone else’s carelessness, please contact our Florida personal injury law firm by calling (813) 463-0123 to see how we might be able to help you with your Tampa personal injury claim.