Personal injury accidents in the Milwaukee area can happen at anytime. However, some types of accidents are more common than others. It is important to understand the most common types of personal injury and car accidents so that you can seek the assistance of a Milwaukee personal injury lawyer if you’ve been involved in an injury accident.
Most personal injury accidents happen when another party acts negligently. In order to prove negligence, the injured victim must be able to establish that the defendant:
Owed the plaintiff a duty of care:
The definition of a “duty of care” varies among the states. Some states look only to whether a personal injury was a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions while other states look to the forseeability, the possible magnitude of the harm, the cost of avoiding the harm and other factors.
Breached the duty of care:
A defendant breaches his or her duty of care if the defendant failed to act like a reasonable person would have acted given the situation. The reasonable person standard is often one that is contested and argued about in personal injury litigation.
Caused the plaintiff’s injuries:
which would not have happened but for the defendant’s breach of the duty of care. In other words, the plaintiff’s injuries must have occurred because of the defendant’s actions and not because of some underlying medical cause or action that the plaintiff took.
Is liable for damages to the plaintiff:
If the above elements of negligence are satisfied and the plaintiff is either the injured party or someone with standing to sue then the plaintiff is entitled to compensation.
Negligence is often established in the following types of common personal injury accident cases:
- Car Accidents
- rear end accidents
- Motorcycle Accidents
- Truck Accidents
- Boat Accidents
- Bus Accidents
- Pedestrian Accidents
- Bicycle Accidents
- Medical Malpractice
- Slip and Fall Accidents
- Workplace Accidents
- Defective Product Accidents
- Food Poisoning
- Prescription Errors
- Animal Bite Accidents
Milwaukee Personal injury attorneys are familiar with the common types of personal injury accidents and can help you determine if you have a valid claim against the party or parties responsible for your injuries. Each state has a specific statute of limitations within which you must file a lawsuit to recover compensation for injuries sustained in a personal injury accident or forego your claim. Therefore, if you have sustained injuries or a loved one has been killed in any of the above listed common personal injury accidents or another type of personal injury accident then you should contact a Milwaukee personal injury lawyer as soon as possible.