From car crashes to pedestrian accidents, slips and falls and animal attacks, personal injuries come in all manner of forms. If you sustain injuries that are a direct result of someone else’s wrongful actions, New Jersey negligence laws permit you to sue the liable party for damages.
However, personal injury lawsuits, like most legal matters, can be quite complex. It’s not uncommon for the court to reject a seemingly straightforward case and, as you can imagine, this can be devastating, especially if you are facing a huge medical bill among other losses. So, what can make your personal injury lawsuit fall flat?
Here are two instances when this can happen:
1. When you have no evidence
Believe it or not, no matter how severe your injuries are, you will likely lose your case if you cannot link them to the accident and, by extension, the defendant. Simply put, you need evidence to successfully sue for damages.
Depending on the cause of your injuries, some of the evidence you might need to build a strong case against the defendant includes the doctor’s report, police report, eyewitness account and surveillance footage of the accident scene. This underpins the importance of calling the police before leaving the accident scene and seeing a doctor as soon as you can even if you do not feel pain.
2. When your contribution to the accident is greater than the defendant’s
According to New Jersey’s comparative negligence laws, you cannot recover damages from the defendant if your contribution to the accident in question was greater than 50 percent. Also, this means that your recoverable damages will be reduced based on your degree of fault. This explains the importance of collecting as much evidence as possible before heading to the court.
Personal injury lawsuits boil down to the concept of negligence. Find out how sound legal representation can help you build a strong personal injury case against the liable party.
