Legal Principles
Most Personal Injury claims are based on negligence. This is the breach by the defendant of the duty of care owed to you which consequently resulted in you sustaining loss or damage.
In order to succeed in a negligence claim and for your solicitor to prove liability (that the defendant was at fault), the following three elements must be established:
1. The defendant owed you a duty of care.
The defendant will only be liable, under the principles of negligence, if you can establish that he had a duty to take care of you.
In most cases, it is quite clear that a duty of care is owed. These are some of the most common established situations:
- doctor to patient
- employer to employee
- manufacturer to consumer
- road user to road user (this includes driver to passenger, driver to pedestrian, driver to other drivers etc)
2. The defendant was in breach of that duty.
In order to be liable, they must not only owe you a duty of care but they must have failed to come up to the standard required by law for fulfilling that duty. This is often the most difficult element to prove due to varying statements about the facts of the situation or a lack of witnesses.
The standard is that of the reasonable person – the defendant is only required to take as much care as an ordinary reasonable person would in that situation.
The court will firstly look at how the defendant should have behaved in the circumstances, and then will decide whether their standard of care fell below this ‘reasonable’ standard.
However, certain people owe a higher standard of care. Where a person has a special skill, for example a doctor, they are not judged by the standard of the ordinary reasonable person. They will be judged according to the higher standard of care held by their profession.
3. The breach caused injury and consequential losses which were reasonably foreseeable.
Finally, it must be shown that the defendant’s breach caused damage or loss and it must have been reasonably likely that their lack of care would result in this.
Even if you can establish that the defendant’s actions caused your damage, you will not be able to make a claim if there is no link between your injuries and the defendant’s actions. All three of the above elements must be satisfied in order to prove negligence.
If you want to enquire about making a claim, please contact a member of our team on 01895 207 835 or 01895 207 295. Alternatively, you can send an email with your name and contact information and brief details as to the nature of the accident/clinical negligence and the injuries sustained to PI@ibblaw.co.uk and one of our team will be able to help you.
