Understanding Negligence in Personal Injury Cases: Key Elements Explained (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: What is negligence in a personal injury case? Hi, I'm Brian Beckham, one of the founding partners of VB Attorneys. As one of Houston's top personal injury law firms for over two decades now, we've guided thousands of clients through their personal injury lawsuits. In this video, I'd like to take a moment to explain the term negligence as it is defined and used in personal injury cases. Now, whether you've been hurt by an 18-wheeler in a bad car accident or hurt on the job, working offshore or onshore if you're hurt by a defective product, you're probably going to need to prove negligence in order to win your case. There are four key elements that you'll need to prove in order to prove negligence in your personal injury lawsuit. Number one, first, you have to prove that the defendant had a duty of care to you. And so what does that mean? An example of that would be, we all have a duty when we're driving to use reasonable care and not hurt other people on the road. So that would be an example of a duty. The second thing you're going to have to prove is that the defendant breached the duty of care. In other words, we have a duty not to run stop signs. If you run a stop sign and hurt somebody, that's a breach of the duty of reasonable care. The third thing you need to prove is that the breach caused injury. So an example of that would be somebody could run a stoplight, hit somebody, but they don't get hurt. That's negligence, but that's not enough to win in a personal injury case. And the fourth thing you have to show is you have to show damages. You have to show that you were injured by the negligent act. So in other words, to use our example, if you run a stoplight and hit somebody and they are hurt by the act of running the stoplight and hitting you, then you've proven damages, you've proven negligence. If you've been a victim of negligence and as a result you've had injuries, you need to consult with an attorney as soon as possible. The deck is stacked against you and time is not on your side. And here's why. Insurance companies have armies of lawyers and insurance adjusters whose only job is to make sure they don't pay any money to you or people that are hurt. They try to encourage you not to get a lawyer. They encourage you not to file a case. All the time they're doing this, they're working behind the scenes to hurt your legal rights. Don't fall for it. If you've enjoyed watching this video, we encourage you to subscribe to our channel. Or if you've learned something new in the video, share it with your friends and family. And don't forget to leave a comment and a like below. You can also find us on Facebook and visit our webpage, www.VBAttorneys.com for more information. And click on the links below if you want to go to any of our sites. Thank you very much.