If you get into the personal injury law niche, you’ll learn about certain concepts. They’ll often come into play when you’re representing a client. However, if someone files a personal injury lawsuit against a person or entity that they allege harmed them or made them ill, they might not necessarily know about such concepts.
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For instance, just about any lawyer who gets into this area of the law will understand why causation is essential in personal injury claims. They’ll probably need to explain it to their client as they approach the trial date, though.
In this article, we will talk about causation in personal injury law in detail. It’s one you should know about if you ever decide that it makes sense to sue a person or company.
What Does This Term Mean?
Let’s say you decide that it makes sense to sue someone. You feel that a person or entity harmed you. You also find it likely that you can come up with evidence that will prove it if you enlist the help of a lawyer and their investigators.
If you find an attorney who seems skilled in the legal niche, then you can hire them and move forward. You will want to make sure they agree to a pay structure that works for you.
Once you start to talk with your lawyer about the situation and who you feel you can blame, they will probably bring up what needs to happen in order to give you the best chance of winning your case.
You want a jury’s decision or to get a settlement offer that you feel gives you adequate financial compensation. That’s probably when your attorney will bring up causation.
It means establishing a legal connection between a plaintiff’s injuries and a defendant’s actions or inactions that harmed them or made them ill. In this instance, you’re the plaintiff, and the person or entity who you allege harmed you has the role of the defendant.
With causation, you’re trying to say the defendant directly harmed you. You will need to draw a link between something they did (or didn’t do) and an injury you sustained or illness you endured.
The Two Components That Make Up Causation
If your legal case makes it into a courtroom, that usually means either the defendant didn’t offer you a plea deal or that they did offer you one, but you turned it down. If that happens, your lawyer will need to get up and argue on your behalf in front of a judge and jury.
They will argue on behalf of causation. First, they will try to say that the defendant’s actions actually caused the injury or illness. The legal system calls this part “actual cause.”
Then, there’s a second element. The legal system calls that “proximate cause.” Proximate cause means that the defendant should have reasonably predicted that their action or inaction would cause your injury or illness.
To win your case, you will probably need to establish both parts of this equation. If your lawyer can argue that the situation that caused your illness or injury had both actual cause and proximate cause on the defendant’s part, then it’s highly likely a jury will find in your favor if the trial proceeds to that point.
Remember, though, that most of these trials never get to a jury’s verdict. If the defendant’s lawyer sees that you did a good job of establishing both actual cause and proximate cause, they will more than likely suggest to the defendant that they try to settle. If they don’t, you might get much more in damages through a jury’s verdict.
Why You and Your Lawyer Need to Establish Causation
You and your lawyer should always try to establish causation and its two elements because, in civil trials, the judge will instruct the jury to listen for causation. The individuals who comprise the jury may know nothing about this concept before the trial starts, but the judge will tell them about it beforehand.
If your lawyer can successfully establish causation, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t win your lawsuit.
Causation in Personal Injury Law – The “But For” Rule
There’s also a concept called the “but for” rule that often enters into these types of lawsuits. It refers to a reliable way that you and your lawyer can prove causation.
Your attorney must try to establish that the injury would not have occurred “but for” something the defendant did or didn’t do. If you can say something like “I would not have sustained this broken arm but for the defendant driving drunk,” and you can present evidence to back that up, then you have proven causation in the eyes of the law.
What if the Defendant Won’t Settle?
In many cases, if you and your lawyer provide what seems like abundant evidence that the defendant’s actions or inactions caused your injury or illness, then they should offer a settlement on their lawyer’s advice.
If you feel they offered you enough money that it will make up for your economic and non-economic losses, then you can accept, and the trial can conclude. You must then pay your lawyer the agreed-upon fee via contingency. If your attorney got the defendant to settle, then that means they won your case for you.
However, you might have a situation every so often where the defendant, whether that’s a private citizen or a company, won’t settle, even if you think you have provided ample evidence that establishes causation.
Maybe that’s not smart, but you have stubborn people sometimes who won’t admit any wrongdoing, even in the face of conclusive proof. They will keep going till they get to a jury’s verdict.
If they do that, though, they’re running a real risk. Going to a jury’s verdict can get you considerably more money than you might obtain through a settlement offer. You won’t know whether things will play out that way till you begin your trial, though.
