Proving Liability
An important factor in any personal injury claim is proving “liability” — showing who caused an injury and how that happened. In some types of claims, proving liability is fairly straightforward. For example, if a motorist is stopped at a red light and is injured when hit from behind by another driver, it’s relatively obvious who caused the injury and how they did it. In other situations, however, this can be much more challenging. Slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall injury claims are often much more difficult situations in which to prove liability and show how a “defective condition” of some sort caused the incident. One difficulty is in understanding how and why the injured person ended up in a situation where the defect caused him or her to slip or trip. This is where the element of human factors in personal injury claims becomes very important.
The “Human” Factors in Personal Injury Claims
Explaining the human factors in personal injury claims requires an understanding of both human nature and of the environment in which a person has experienced an injury. If a slip-and-fall victim had a choice of different paths to take, why did he take the one that led to his injury? If a machinery operator had a choice of different ways in which to operate her equipment, why did she choose the method that resulted in the equipment causing her an injury?
Expert Testimony
To address these situations, a personal injury attorney will often retain the services of an expert knowledgeable as to the importance of human factors in personal injury claims. Very often these experts will have backgrounds in engineering fields or in safety practices and will work with architects and large companies to design safe buildings and workplaces. They can provide valuable expert testimony about human factors in personal injury claims to explain why the injury victim ended up interacting with the environment in a way that resulted in them being hurt, as well as testimony explaining why the premises owner could and should have understood that the defect on their property was likely to injury someone.
I’m Ed Smith, a Sacramento personal injury attorney with the primary accident information site on the web, AutoAccident.com.
If you have suffered a serious injury in a slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall incident or other traumatic event, call me now at 916.921.6400.
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