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Breach of Duty

You cannot win your personal injury claim founded on negligence unless you prove that the at-fault party breached their duty of care to you. Sometimes proving breach of duty is a straightforward matter. A driver breaches their duty of care by running a red light, for example. 

In other cases, proving breach of duty can be deceptively difficult.

The Four Elements of a Negligence Claim

Breach of duty is one of four legal elements that you must prove to win a negligence claim. These four elements appear below:

1. The at-fault party (typically the defendant, but not always) owed you a duty of care.
2. The at-fault party breached their duty of care. Elements 1 and 2 together add up to negligence.
3. You suffered damages—that is, harm that money can compensate you for. Money can compensate for intangible harms such as pain and suffering.
4. The at-fault party’s negligence caused your damages, and they did so in a foreseeable manner.

You have to prove all four of these elements on a ‘more likely than not’ basis, not ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’

Meet the “Reasonable Person”

You have never met the ‘reasonable person’ because they do not exist. They are a hypothetical creation of legal scholars. If you want to know whether a defendant was at fault, however, just ask yourself, ‘What would the reasonable person do?’ 

The reasonable person always acts prudently, always obeys the law, and never acts irresponsibly or impulsively. If the defendant’s behavior deviated from what a reasonable person would do, they might bear liability. 

Beyond the “Reasonable Person” Standard: Elevated Duties of Care

Just about every human, other than the mentally incompetent and some children, owes everyone else a duty of reasonable care. That just means they must act reasonably to avoid causing injury to another person. 

Some people acting in certain contexts, however, must comply with an elevated duty of care. Following are some examples: 

• Doctors and hospitals must comply with the local medical community’s standards of care when diagnosing and treating patients. Failure to do so can result in a medical malpractice claim.
• Common carriers must comply with an elevated standard of care to ensure the safety of passengers. United Airlines, Amtrak, and the Greyhound bus lines are common carriers, for example. 

• Landlords and property owners must maintain their rental properties in a safe condition. They must either repair or warn of hazards that they know about or should have known about.

• Schools and daycare centers must protect the safety and well-being of children in their care. They must provide supervision, and they must act to avoid foreseeable harm. Under the right circumstances, you can sue a school or daycare center for negligent security.
• Nursing home staff must provide proper care and supervision to their residents. They must not only keep their residents safe but also attend to their medical needs.
• Construction site managers must obey extensive regulations and protect workers and visitors from accidents and injuries.

In some cases, statutes and regulations provide the duty of care. In other cases, expert testimony (see below) or even ‘common sense’ might provide the standard.

Proving Breach of Duty: Expert Testimony

Sometimes, personal injury claims get so complex that you need expert testimony to resolve them. Expert testimony is common in product liability claims and catastrophic injury claims. Expert testimony is the rule rather than the exception in medical malpractice cases. You can use expert testimony in settlement negotiations (sworn affidavits), depositions, and trials. 

Beware, as the other side might recruit another expert to counter your expert’s opinion. In that case, you might face a ‘battle of the experts’ scenario.

Proving Breach of Duty: Negligence Per Se

You can’t prove breach of the at-fault party’s duty of care unless you first prove the exact nature of their duty of care. For example, the at-fault driver should have stopped at the red light, or the at-fault doctor should have ordered lab tests after you complained of certain symptoms. 

However, proving duty of care can be very subjective. What was the at-fault party’s duty under a particular set of circumstances? 

The negligence per se rule allows you to use a safety statute or regulation as the standard of care. If you prove the defendant violated such a statute or regulation, you prove negligence. Establishing negligence per se won’t win your case all by itself; you still have to prove damages and causation to win. But it does make it easier for you to prove liability.

Commercial truck accidents, for example, are particularly vulnerable to a negligence per se approach because commercial trucking is a heavily regulated industry.

“Now” Is the Best Time To Talk to an Augusta Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal injury claims tend to get weaker as time goes by. For example, a witness might move out of town, or their memory might become cloudy. Meanwhile, physical evidence deteriorates or gets lost. 

Even if it’s too early to worry about the statute of limitations, you should begin preparing your personal injury case ASAP. An Augusta personal injury lawyer can help you with this. Contact us online or call (706) 722-8784 to speak with an attorney of Nicholson Revell Personal Injury Attorneys.