Erase the Word Accident from your Vocabulary

Erase the word “ACCIDENT” from your vocabulary! There are no accidents in personal injury law. You are dealing with someone’s NEGLIGENCE. The word accident implies that there is some vague reason that will excuse the person or machine that harmed or injured you. Defendants and their insurance companies use the word accident to hold themselves blameless. You were not injured in an accident. You were injured due to someone’s NEGLIGENCE. People have a duty not to injure other people. When the negligently breach that duty and you are injured, the law gives you the right to seek damages in the form of money.

In the days of old, the law was an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life. This created so many blood feuds that western civilization had to create another method for a person to seek revenge. Compensation in the form of money took the pace of revenge. If a person negligently operates his automobile and collides with your automobile and breaks your leg, you cannot legally have someone break his leg. But you can have an attorney represent you and sue the britches off and move money from his bank account to your bank account to take care of you and to pay for your pain and suffering. That form of revenge may not be the fairest of all forms, but it is the only legal remedy in this country.

Negligence takes many forms. There are negligent acts committed by someone. An example would be driving on the wrong side of the road. There are also negligent omissions committed by someone. An example would be omitting to turn on your headlights at night while driving on a narrow road. Both forms of negligence can cause you life long pain and suffering. For negligence of that type, a jury can award you actual (or compensatory) damages to try to compensate you for your injuries or a competent attorney can negotiate a fair and reasonable settlement to your satisfaction.

There are two types of damages. We have discussed actual or compensatory damages. The second type is called punitive damages. The word punitive means to punish. Those damages are awarded when the purposeful conduct of a person is to knowingly and willfully injure you. An illustration would be that he drove his automobile onto the sidewalk for the specific reason of running over you. That’s not simple negligence, it’s willful negligence. Another example would be an automobile manufacturer that designed a gas tank too close to the rear bumper and before production knew that it was likely to explode when the automobile was hit from behind. This actually happened and the gas tank in a Ford Pinto case exploded and severely burned a young man and permanently scarred and disfigured him. The jury was so outraged by the fact that Ford knew about the defect but still manufactured the car without moving the gas tank that it brought in a very large punitive or punishment verdict against Ford designed to be a warning to other automobile manufacturers not to knowingly manufacture an automobile that was dangerous and might injure you or your loved ones. A good rule of thumb to decide whether you also have punitive damages is whether or not the conduct of the other party was so outrageous as to make you and your friends extremely angry. Those are the type cases that we like to explore because we are in the justice business and those type cases demand that a jury truly give justice and protect the other citizens of our country fro willful negligent acts of manufacturers and others whose greed for profit is put before your safety.

Why are we taking time to explain all of this to you? Because a lot of people really and truly believe that they were injured just because of an accident and think nothing can be done or may think it was their fault that they were injured when it was not. Well, that is simply not the case. Let us discuss the facts of your case with you. We might open your eyes to a whole new way of looking at the situation that you have been placed in through no fault of your own. Call us.

(601) 952-0799