In general, a negligent action is recklessness that causes injury to another individual. It might be an activity, like recklesslessly knocking a rock off a rooftop, or a failure to behave, like a landlord who doesn’t repair a broken step. Negligent conduct generally provides the justification for injury lawsuits.

For you to bring a legal suit for negligence, the injured party (the individual filing the claim) must show four elements: That the negligent party (the person or entity being sued) owed the injured party a duty of due care; that the defendant failed to use due care towards the injured party (i.e. breached the duty); that the defendant’s breach of duty caused the plaintiff’s an injury; and that the injured party suffered damages as a result.

Duty of due care: The plaintiff has to demonstrate that the accused had a duty of reasonable care toward the plaintiff. An individual has a duty to avoid causing an injury to another if a reasonable individual in the same scenario could foresee that an behavior (or failure to react) could cause harm. Some situations are very clear. We all know that a person may be injured if we run a stop light, so we have a duty of due care to follow traffic regulations and signals. Other circumstances are more tricky. If a homeowner has a private swimming pool in a fenced yard, does he have a duty to prevent a neighbor child from climbing the fence and accidentally drowning in the pool? How much care would a reasonable individual take in that scenario? In each scenario, the conditions concerning the harm play a significant role in determining whether or not a defendant had a duty of reasonable care towards the injured party.

Breach of Duty: The plaintiff must prove that the negligent parties failed to carry out their duty of due care. For example, an ordinary individual could foresee that a truck full of dynamite might blow up, so someone who parks such a vehicle in a populated parking lot has breached the duty of reasonable care to the other individuals nearby. If the vehicle explodes, the driver could possibly be guilty of negligence. Somebody may also foresee that a car that isn’t fixed correctly may malfunction, so if the brakes on a poorly repaired car fail and the car hits a child, the owner of the car may have breached the duty of care to that child. Every car owner has a duty to maintain the car in a safe condition. Alternatively, if the owner regularly maintains and repairs the car and the brakes failed because the brakes were faulty or the mechanic made a mistake, the owner did not breach a duty of due care, though the brake manufacturer or the mechanic might be to blame.

Cause: The injury victim has to prove that the defendant’s breach of duty brought about the personal injury for which the plaintiff is suing. At times causation is very clear. If you run a traffic light and hit a person, you obviously caused the harm. If the pedestrian’s elderly mother has a heart attack and passes away when she hears of her daughter’s injury, did you result in that injury? Probably not, but those are the kinds of concerns that have to be reconciled in a negligent conduct legal action. There may also be questions about what injuries was caused by an accident. Individuals frequently have more than one accident in their lives, so if somebody has had two prior back injuries, just what injury to the back was caused by the most recent fall down a flight of stairs?

Damages: Damages in a negligent conduct legal action try to put the injury victim in the same position he or she would be in if the accident hadn’t happened. A injured party must show the economic value of his or her injuries. For example, if a person is disabled and may no longer work, a calculation of damages would consider the occupation of the injured party and the amount he or she would have earned during the time left in a normal working career. Damages would also include medical expenses and estimated costs for medical attention, special accommodations, and assisted living.

In some circumstances defendants are at fault for negligent conduct as of the operation of law, and not because they immediately caused an accident. For instance, since an employer is held to blame for injuries caused by employees during work, UPS may be liable if a UPS driver has an accident while making deliveries. A hospital may be held responsible for injury caused by only one nurse. Injury victims typically make claims against several accused to make sure there will be enough assets (money) to pay a judgment.

If you’ve been the victim of a serious car accident in Maryland, you need the advice of an experienced Maryland personal accident lawyer. Talk to a local Maryland personal accident lawyer about your options.