Anytime someone gets hurt due to another party’s shortcomings, said party will likely try to reduce their liability. Damages vary based on multiple factors, but it isn’t in the party’s best interest to shell out thousands, let alone millions. To that end, they build a sound defense by gathering as much evidence as possible.
Success in a personal injury case, whether in Tuscaloosa or anywhere else, doesn’t come easy. Any lawyer will tell you that it involves overcoming many hurdles, with one not being easier than the next. Nevertheless, there isn’t any other way to recover lost wages and medical expenses, among others, than going through them one by one.
Contributory Negligence
Alabama is one of four contributory negligence states, which weigh personal injury cases based on the degree to which each party contributed to the incident. This is specified in Rule 8(c) of the state’s Rules of Civil Procedure, stating that it’s an “affirmative defense.”
This is a big deal for many reasons, starting with how contributory negligence works. Even if the victim is 1% at fault for the incident, the court can deem them ineligible to recover damages. This differs from comparative negligence, where damages are calculated based on how much at fault the victim is.
Defending in contributory negligence is easier because the defendant only needs to prove the plaintiff’s fault. If successful, the defendant won’t be obligated to pay damages even if proven to be 99% at fault. As of this writing, there are no efforts for the state’s judiciary to adopt the fairer comparative negligence system.
This doesn’t mean that recovering damages under such a system is impossible. Personal injury lawyers have workarounds, some of which include:
- Emergency doctrine – the victim is exempted from exercising reasonable care in a situation where there’s little to no time to consider their actions or decisions
- Last clear chance doctrine – the victim can recover damages if they can prove that the other party had a clear chance to prevent the incident from happening
- Proof of mental disability – the victim may be suffering from a mental health issue that prevents them from avoiding danger and exercising care
As such, when you file a personal injury claim in Tuscaloosa or elsewhere, you’d want to do so with a lawyer’s help. There’s little one untrained in personal injury law can do, especially when arguing their case. That said, a lawyer with decades of experience handling personal injury claims and a mindset that fights for victims’ rights can accomplish a great deal.
Liability and Causation
You may be familiar with the phrase “correlation does not imply causation,” particularly in scientific studies. The same can be said in personal injury law, as courts demand that the cause directly resulted in the incident.
Marin Scordato, professor of law at The Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law, stated that nowhere is causation more foundational than in tort or personal injury law. Also, within tort law, it’s most prevalent in proving negligence. As far as contributory negligence goes, the idea is to confirm that the other party has been thoroughly negligent.
Building a solid negligence claim must satisfy two types of causation. The first is factual or actual cause, which is the fact that the defendant’s actions or decisions directly led to the victim’s injury. To prove this, courts use the “but-for” test that basically asks, “if not for X, would Y have happened?”
However, the “but-for” test isn’t without its flaws, such as the tendency to include remote or merged causes. That’s where proximate cause comes in, establishing the fact that the injury is a foreseeable result of the cause. The court asks if the other party would’ve seen the consequences of their actions or decisions coming from a mile away.
As straightforward as all this seems, proving both types of causation is challenging due to the amount of evidence required. The defendant can argue that an unforeseen factor or a third party is to blame, and the plaintiff has the burden of proving strict liability.
Statute of Limitations
A victim can only delay filing a personal injury claim for so long before the courts deem it “stale” or no longer timely. This is known as a statute of limitations, and in Alabama, it’s only two years from the date of getting the injury (as per Ala. Code § 6-2-38(a)).
A statute of limitations exists because a person’s memories of the incident can change or disappear over time. This results in evidence that’s either outdated or deviates from hard facts, which the defendant can call out for unreliability. It also serves to prevent plaintiffs from seeking damages for past personal injury claims that were never filed.
Two years may seem like plenty of time, but your enemy here is time itself. Vital sources of evidence like eyewitness accounts can get lost in foggy recollections, and medical records can become outdated due to changes in the victim’s body. Even if your claim proves that the defendant is 100% negligent, it can still be dismissed if you miss the two-year deadline.
Lawyers advise their clients to file a personal injury claim as soon as they’re physically able to. While filing immediately may seem like a good idea, emotions may still be running high and affect your judgment. Focus on getting treated first; you’ll need the medical bills and other records that the hospital produces, anyway.
Hard But Not Impossible
These are just some of the hurdles that stand in the way of recovering damages—hard to overcome but not impossible. It boils down to filing your personal injury lawsuit as soon as possible, with the first step being to find a good lawyer to ease the burden.
