You can refer to negligence as a personal injury lawsuit or a personal injury insurance claim; both may just as well be the same thing from a legal point of view. Before you dash off to start filing personal injury lawsuits with your personal injury lawyer or even begin to negotiate with a claims adjuster about that personal injury insurance claim you wish to get, you must first understand a few concepts and consult a slip and fall lawyer Toronto. There are four elements of negligence that you must be aware of and also how they are related to each other.
You cannot just instantly sue someone for falling on their premises. You need to have tangible proof of some four very vital elements in a fall case, slip and fall, and also trip. You should know you do not have any tangible case if you can’t prove every one of these elements.
- Duty on the part of the defendant: the premises is owned and operated by the defendant.
- Notice: the defendant knew or had to have known of the factors that could cause any harm to the public.
- Dangerous condition: the factors that led to the plaintiff’s injury were dangerous, not small defects.
- Damages: the dangerous conditions led to the injuries suffered by the plaintiff
Duty
What duty means here is that as the owner of the premises you need to ensure that you address any conditions that can end up causing you or anyone else around the premise or surroundings of your premise any harm. Owned duty comes about as to whether you, as the premise owner, or the occupier of the premise, ought to have had any control of the premise that the accident occurred. In instances where you have more than one owner of the premise, you have to determine who was in charge of the premise at the time of the accident. As the plaintiff, you need to know you cannot win your case if you cannot prove the defendant’s owner duty.
Notice
Another one of the vital issues you need to establish in these types of cases is notice. As the plaintiff, you ought to have your attorney call on experts that can testify to your case, the typical practices like inspection, hazard prevention procedure, and also maintenance. It may be possible for you to prove improper premise management if you have proof that the defendant has deviated from any of these industry practices.
Dangerous Condition
As the injured in this case, you now know that a dangerous condition must have existed for you to suffer any injuries. However, you need to prove this fact to stand a chance of winning your lawsuit. As the plaintiff, you have to prove that the defendant knew or had knowledge of the dangerous conditions that led to your injuries but did not take any action about these conditions. As the plaintiff, you need to prove that the conditions were, indeed, dangerous and not some normal minor wear and tear that would otherwise create no potential harm.
Damages
It is not always easy to prove that the injuries you have were as a result of the accident you suffered as a result of someone else’s negligence. You must prove that the injuries you were diagnosed with were caused as a result of the dangerous conditions in the defendant’s premises. Do not brush off your injuries as if nothing happened, instead seek medical attention and take reports of the incident for you may need these when testifying your case.