How to find a good California Personal Injury Attorney

A person may have a number of reasons to hire a personal injury attorney in California. Personal injury involves a lawsuit against a company or individual that harmed the victim, or plaintiff, through negligence, or as a consequence of an act that results in injury to another. Injuries can be physical, injure a person's character, or restrict a person's liberty and freedom. Examples of injury to a person's character can include someone spreading false rumors about them and damaging their reputations. Personal injury related to damaging someone's freedom or liberty could include false imprisonment.

Personal injury law is different than criminal law.

Criminal law is involved in the cases where a person broke a criminal statute and could go to jail for breaking the law. However, someone may be involved in both a personal injury case and a criminal case at the same time. For example, a victim of a crime, who has been hit by a car driven by a drunken driver, may pursue a personal injury lawsuit against the driver of the car to recover money to compensate the plaintiff for damages, such as lost wages. In addition, the driver may face a jail sentence or probation from the criminal court system related to driving under the influence.

In California, personal injury law is covered by torts, which are acts of negligence or direct behavior that result in harm to another person. The main purpose of tort law is to insure that people who are injured by the acts of others are entitled to be compensated by the party who injured them, who is also referred to as a defendant.

Torts fall into three categories: intentional, negligent, and strict liability.

A California personal injury attorney may handle all three types of torts, but some may specialize only in one type. Intentional torts involve direct acts of harm, such as assaulting someone, spreading false rumors that damage a person's reputation, or false imprisonment.

The main issue that must be proved for these kinds of cases to be successful is willful, intentional harm. If the personal injury attorney cannot prove that the defendant acted with willful intent to inflict harm, then the personal injury case would be lost. One example of a failure to prove willful intent to harm could be a victim of a gunshot who was physically injured when someone was playing around with a gun and accidentally shot the victim. The defendant did not willfully intend to harm the victim.

However, a skilled California personal injury attorney would be more likely to pursue a personal injury case against the defendant as a case of negligence in a situation where a gun went off by accident. Again, the attorney would have to prove the four segments of negligence. First of all, the lawyer for the plaintiff must prove that the defendant had a duty of care. A duty of care is the duty to follow basic standards of protection against injury to others. Any gun owner would reasonably have a duty of care to store and handle his firearms with reasonable levels of safety.

Secondly, it must be proven that the defendant breached the duty of care. In this case, it could be proven if, for example, the defendant had shot the gun off to scare his friend by shooting over his friend's head as a joke, and accidentally shot his friend in the shoulder.

However, it could be harder to prove a breach of the duty of care if the defendant claimed he was being careful, but just accidentally dropped the gun and it went off. The third element that must be established is that the defendant's breach of the duty of care caused an injury to the plaintiff. If the first two elements were established in this gun case, then it is fairly easy to prove that the plaintiffs' injuries were caused by the defendant's breach of the duty of care. In some cases, this element can be harder to prove.

It could be hard to prove that cancer was the result of negligence by a chemical company for contaminating water supplies. The cancer could have been caused by a number of other things, even if it is proven that the chemicals were drained into the water supply. The fourth element of negligence is to prove that damages occurred.

California personal injury attorney with a proven track record

In the case of the gunshot victim, a California personal injury attorney could easily prove damages occurred if the victim lost the use of his arm. However, damages are hard to prove if the plaintiff was only grazed by a bullet and did not require any surgery. Sometimes plaintiffs will try to sue for emotional damages in these cases, but only a very skilled personal injury attorney is able to prove that emotional damages occurred.

The third type of tort is direct liability. This is typically used again manufacturers, and it enables plaintiffs to sue a company if their product caused harm to the plaintiff, even if the plaintiff used it in a way that was not intended. It has to be proven that the product was defective, caused the injury to the plaintiff, and damages resulted from the injury.

The burden of proof in all personal injury cases is on the plaintiff, so the attorney must be able to demonstrate enough burden of proof to convince a jury to award damages to a plaintiff.

Given the complexity of the conditions that must be proven in order to successfully win these types of lawsuits, it is important to pick only an experienced and qualified California personal injury attorney with a proven track record in working on cases that involve your particular type of tort situation.