New Jersey personal injury cases usually require proving that the defendant caused your injury through negligence. This means showing they breached some duty they owed you, which caused your injuries.
To prove negligence, you need to prove each element of the case. You do this with your own testimony about what happened, backed up by corroborating evidence, eyewitness statements, and more. Our attorneys can look for certain rules and requirements that can make proving negligence easier in special circumstances or against certain defendants.
For a free review of your case, call the NJ personal injury attorneys at Agrapidis & Maroules, P.C. at (201) 777-1111.
Elements To Prove in a Negligence Case
When bringing a personal injury claim, you should be aware of the elements your lawyer needs to prove to win your case:
- Duty – proof that the defendant owed you a legal duty
- Breach – proof that they violated that duty
- Causation – proof that their breach was what caused your injuries
- Damages – proof that you have redressable/compensable damages.
If you miss any one of these elements, you lose your case.
When put together, these elements make sense:
- First, you cannot hold someone liable if they didn’t owe you anything.
- Second, you can’t hold them responsible if they didn’t do anything wrong.
- Third, what they did needs to have actually been what caused your injuries or else someone else would be liable.
- And lastly, you need to have actually faced harm to sue for it.
Proving Duty and Breach
Duty and breach are two sides of the same coin: they show what the defendant was supposed to do and how they violated that requirement.
Many duties are based on the relationship between the parties. For example, a doctor must follow the standard of care when treating a patient, something other doctors in the field define with a consensus. As another example, a landlord must keep fire exits clear and in working order to help protect tenants.
Evidence of the duty often comes from the situation itself, and evidence of breach comes from observing the defendant’s actions.
Causation
If you cannot prove that what the defendant did wrong actually caused your injuries, you cannot hold them liable.
Defendants often try to beat causation by claiming someone else was responsible or blaming the accident on the victim. Victims in New Jersey can recover damages even if they are up to 50% at fault.
The cause must also be closely related in time and space to the accident. Someone changing lanes illegally 10 miles back likely would not be the cause of an accident, even if that’s what initially put them in your lane where the accident happened.
How Can Laws Help Prove Duty and Breach?
Many duties are based on specific laws put in place to keep people safe. Violations of a safety law can be deemed “negligence per se,” which can help our NJ personal injury lawyers prove negligence.
Traffic laws are a good example of this. These laws are in place to protect drivers and pedestrians, and violating a traffic law supplies the duty and breach elements in a case. For example, if a driver caused a crash because they ran a red light, the fact that they entered the intersection in violation of the red-light law is enough to show breach of duty.
The statute or safety rule provides the duty, and a violation of it supplies the breach.
Other examples include violating OSHA regulations, building safety codes, trucking regulations, and more.
How Do I Prove the Defendant’s Employer’s Fault?
Many accidents are caused by workers during their job tasks. For example, a store worker failing to mop up a spill or a truck driver crashing into you on the highway.
In these cases, the employer can often be held responsible under two legal theories:
Direct Liability
First, if the employer did something wrong to cause the injury, they can be held directly responsible for their share of fault. For example, a trucking company that failed to perform maintenance on their truck can be sued directly if that truck’s dangerous condition caused the accident.
Vicarious Liability
Under a rule called respondeat superior, you can also hold an employer responsible for their employee’s on-the-job negligence.
As long as the worker caused your accident while working within the scope of their job duties, the employer takes responsibility. There is no additional evidence of the employer’s direct fault needed here.
What Evidence Is Needed for NJ Negligence Claims?
You need evidence to prove each element of negligence, which often means relying on various forms of evidence:
Direct Evidence of Facts and Events
Most evidence goes to the facts of what happened. This allows us to argue what the duty was and what the defendant did wrong to violate it. We can show some duties by citing the law, while others can be inferred from the given situation.
The strongest evidence for this is usually one of these:
- Your own testimony
- Other eyewitness testimony
- Camera footage of the accident
- Photos of the aftermath.
Corroborating Evidence
Other evidence merely backs up your claim and helps show that you are telling the truth. For example, if you claim you faced certain injuries, your medical records will back up your claim, as will photos of the aftermath of the accident.
Documentary Evidence
Some evidence cannot be brought into court. For example, if your injuries have already healed, then your medical records will prove they existed. The same is true for vehicle damage or photos of dangerous conditions on someone’s property.
Documentary evidence is also helpful in proving the value of your damages. Medical records prove injuries exist, but medical bills prove what those injuries cost you.
Expert Witnesses
Expert witnesses can help explain things not as eyewitnesses but as experts in certain scientific, engineering, medical, or technical fields.
For example, you need a doctor to explain what your doctor did wrong in treating you. You might also need a materials or manufacturing expert to prove how a defective product was produced or what about it was dangerous enough to cause injury.
Experts can also help you prove damages by projecting future lost wages.
Call Our NJ Personal Injury Attorneys Today
If you were hurt in an accident, call the East Orange, NJ personal injury lawyers at Agrapidis & Maroules, P.C. at (201) 777-1111.