Duties of Care Key to Personal Injury Law

Personal injury law can be complex and confusing even for people who are familiar with it. When we meet terms like “causation” and “duty of care,” even the most savvy among us start to wonder.

But personal injury law is really very simple. If you’re driving your car, walking your dog, or doing just about anything else, then you have a legal duty to take reasonable care in the circumstances. If you breach your legal duty to take reasonable care, and injury results, then you are negligent.

For example, let’s say that Jill is driving her car down the road when her cell phone rings. She picks up the phone and inadvertently swerves into your lane, striking your car. Jill had a duty to drive her car with reasonable care. When she swerved into your lane, she breached that duty. Her actions in not paying attention to the road caused damages to you. If you filed a legal case and could show these elements - duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages - then Jill’s negligence would be established. She would be liable (legally responsible) and probably have to pay you money.

This article will explore the duty to take reasonable care in different circumstances, so that you can minimize the risk that you might be liable for negligence. It will also give you some general understanding of the principles under which a lawsuit might be decided, which will be useful if you’re ever injured as a result of someone’s negligence.

Reasonable Care:

Reasonable care is, naturally, the level of care that would be exercised by a reasonable person, that is, a person with an ordinary degree of reason, prudence, care, and foresight. The reasonable person is a legal fiction who is used to provide an objective standard of reasonable, ordinary behavior to guide the courts.

For example, a court might be asked to decide a case in which a person driving 60 m.p.h. on the highway crashed into a van. Did the driver of the car act with reasonable care? It depends on the circumstances. If the speed limit was 60 m.p.h. and it was a bright sunny day, then a jury might decide that a reasonable person would have driven at the speed limit. If so, the driver met a reasonable standard of care in the circumstances and was probably not negligent.

However, if it was a dark, wet night and there was a heavy fog, then a jury might decide that an ordinary, reasonable person would reduce his or her speed to 40 m.p.h., and a person who was doing 60 could be negligent.

When a jury is asked to decide whether a person has been negligent, the jurors will consider the evidence and arguments to determine whether the person’s actions fall short of a reasonable standard of behavior.

Property Owners

Duty to visitors

Property owners have a general duty to take reasonable care to prevent injury to anyone coming onto their property. This means that landowners must take reasonable action to correct dangerous conditions on their property. For example, if you know that one of your stairs is broken and you do nothing about the condition, then you may be liable for negligence if a person falls and injures himself.

Homeowners must also tell their guests about - or make safe - any dangerous conditions that guests are unlikely to recognize. Suppose, for example, that your guest was injured when he tripped on a throw rug. He may be able to recover from you if he can prove that you knew that other people had tripped over it, and that he was unlikely to realize its danger. He could argue that you had a duty to remove the rug, or secure it to the floor with tape or tacks.

Duty to children

The law generally places a greater burden on landowners when injuries involve children. The reason is that children are too young to understand or appreciate danger in certain situations. Under a legal theory known as the attractive nuisance doctrine, owners who know or should know about potentially dangerous conditions on their lot must warn children who are playing there, or must take reasonable precautions to protect them. If, for example, there is machinery or other equipment on your vacant lot that could present an unreasonable risk to children, you should remove it. If you don’t, you could very well be liable to the children for any injuries they suffer, even if they were trespassing.

Landlords

Landlords have a general duty to maintain the tenant’s property and any common areas of the building - including stairs, corridors, and walkways - in order to ensure that their tenants and guests are not injured on the property. If there’s an accident, the landlord may be liable if:

• The landlord could have taken reasonable steps to avert the accident (relevant factors might be that the landlord knew about the problem, and fixing the problem would not have been unreasonably expensive or difficult);
• the landlord failed to take reasonable steps to avert the accident; and
• the landlord’s failure to make the repairs caused the tenant’s accident and injury.

For example, if guests are injured when a back porch that is part of a unit collapses during a party, the landlord probably would be held liable, especially if he or she had been warned that the porch was sagging or was infested with termites but had not repaired it.

If you are a landlord, there are ways to reduce your liability. Consider having your insurance company inspect the premises and then promptly repair any safety problems the inspector uncovers. If you inspect the premises yourself, look for unsafe wiring, loose railings, poor lighting or similar flaws. You might also write tenants a letter each year asking them to point out hazards or needed repairs they may have noticed. If a tenant who lives in the building every day fails to notice a hazard, it is hard to argue that you should know about it. However, that still may not protect you in a suit by someone who is injured while visiting.

Professionals

Professionals have a special duty to possess and apply the knowledge and skills of other reasonably qualified professionals. That means that if you are a professional - a doctor or a CPA, for example - then you will be liable if your skills do not meet the accepted standard of practice of other professionals.

In medical malpractice cases, a jury will consider testimony by experts - usually other doctors - who will testify whether they believe the physician’s actions followed standard medical practice or fell below the accepted standard of care. In deciding whether a heart surgeon was negligent, for example, a jury will be told to rely on expert testimony to determine what a competent heart surgeon would have done under the same or similar circumstances. A specialist, like a heart surgeon, is held to a higher standard of care than that expected of a non-specialist.

Business Owners

Storeowners and restaurant owners must keep their premises reasonably safe for customers. This includes keeping all floors clear and properly maintained. Suppose, for example, you own a fast food franchise and fail to keep your floor spotlessly clean. If a customer slips on a patch of grease and injures his back, then you could be liable for that injury, depending on other circumstances.

Construction companies have similar duties. They must take reasonable steps to keep sidewalks near their construction sites free from bricks and other debris. If you owned a construction company and failed to remove obstructions on the pavement, then you could be liable if someone tripped over a pile of bricks and was injured. Construction companies should also warn pedestrians that they could be injured if they stray from the sidewalk. But posting a sign is not enough. If a company fails to place barriers or warning lamps by a building pit, for example, it may be responsible if anyone falls into it and gets injured.

It Pays to Be Careful

Every day, at home, on the road, and at work, you owe duties of care to other people. Most of the time you will have a duty to take reasonable care to prevent harm coming to others, which could mean fixing the wobbly third step leading to your front door, driving carefully when you’re in heavy traffic, and putting a fence around your backyard swimming pool so the neighborhood kids can’t get in. In some circumstances, you’ll owe a higher standard of care - for example, if you’re a professional you’ll need to possess and apply the knowledge and the skills of other reasonably qualified professionals.

If you’re worried about your possible liability, or if you’ve been injured as a result of someone else’s negligence, contact a lawyer as soon as possible. There are time periods that must be followed called “statute of limitations” that require a lawsuit to be started within a set time period otherwise you would lose the right to sue. The attorneys at Burns & Associates are available to answer your questions. {1-(732) 596-1999}