There may come a day where you are injured by another person and feel the need to file a personal injury lawsuit. However, the qualifications for such a lawsuit are not limited to just being injured. There are actually three aspects that are needed if you have any hope to receive compensation for your injury.

The Percentage of Fault

The first thing to look at is what percentage of fault each person has in the accident. Unfortunately, sometimes assigning fault is very subjective even though it is crucial to your case. The defendant is likely going to try to put the blame on you, and you are going to blame the defendant. 

For example, in an auto accident where you are injured, each driver will be assigned a percentage of fault. If another driver ran a red light, the fault will clearly be put on the driver that broke the law and caused the accident. Things get tricky if both drivers were breaking different traffic laws at the same time. This is important in states where an injury lawsuit can be denied if someone is assigned any percentage of fault.

The Negligence

It is also important that the responsible party was acting in a way that was negligent. Going back to the car accident example, a person that was speeding or driving while intoxicated would clearly be demonstrating negligence if they caused an accident. However, things become more complicated when their negligence is questionable. 

A slip and fall accident at a business can easily be attributed to the business allowing a situation where a customer can slip and fall. However, not all slip and falls are preventable. If another customer dropped a jar on the floor, and then you slipped in it and fell, negligence would only apply if the business had ample time to clean up the mess. 

The Losses

The key component of a personal injury lawsuit is suffering some sort of loss as a result of the accident. This could be a monetary loss in the form of hospital bills, but it could also be something that is harder to measure. Pain and suffering damages are often used in personal injury lawsuits to help quantify the lasting effects of a personal injury that often do not have a direct monetary loss.

If you think that you have a case on your hands, meet with a personal injury attorney in your area for a consultation.