Evidence Is What Makes Your Personal Injury Case
Mark A. Steinberg
Personal Injury
Many people throughout the USA and Florida are familiar with the concept of a lawsuit, even if they've never actually undertaken one themselves. A lawsuit is a tool people use to get justice for unlawful or unethical acts that don't necessarily warrant criminal charges. In some cases, lawsuits may be able to exact the justice that a criminal trial fails to achieve, such as the landmark OJ Simpson case, where a criminal trial found him not guilty, but a lawsuit for wrongful death was successfully carried out.However, it's important to note that while a lawsuit and a criminal trial have different goals in mind, one thing remains the same between the two of them. A jury often presides over the trial, listening to arguments and, more importantly, weighing the evidence presented to them. This is why, when it comes to a lawsuit, you must be sure you evidence backing up your claims before deciding to commit to a court date.
The Risk Of Loss
While you don't need evidence to go to trial for a lawsuit, you certainly need all the evidence you can get if you want to win that trial. Having evidence on hand is not a guarantee of winning a trial, but the more of it you can present—especially if your defendant has no counter—the higher your odds are that the jury will render a verdict in your favor.
Evidence is crucial because these are objects, ideas, or information that give solid reasons for why you are telling the truth and why your argument is the correct one to uphold. Suppose you make a claim against someone, but have nothing to back it up. In that case, it's far easier for an opposing lawyer to argue that your claim has no merit and that you may even be deceptive and malicious in your lawsuit. Evidence refutes these claims.
Proving Negligence
When it comes to personal injury lawsuits, such as a car accident, a slip, and fall, or even in the most tragic cases, a wrongful death, negligence is typically cited as the key cause. Whether you are driving a car, running a business, or even manufacturing a retail product for general public use, there is a legal concept known as "duty of care" that must always be exercised.
Duty of care is the responsibility of a person to ensure specific minimal safety standards are observed to create a safer environment for everyone in the area. For drivers, this means paying attention to the road, not texting while driving, and not consuming drugs or alcohol before operating a vehicle. For someone running an amusement park, this means inspecting the equipment when required and, if a flaw is found, taking a ride offline and repairing it before putting it back in operation.
Negligence is when this duty of care is deliberately not observed, usually as a result of carelessness. This is where proof comes in. If you are the victim of a personal injury due to someone else's negligence, you can't just make the accusation and expect to get financial compensation. You must prove that negligence happened and that it was avoidable had the accused exercised their primary duty of care responsibilities.
What Is Evidence?
Depending on the nature of the case, evidence can take many forms. Evidence can be something tangible that you can see and touch, such as an actual defective product that resulted in an injury. Other times, the evidence is preserved and recorded, such as security camera recordings or even recorded images from a dashboard camera on a car that witnesses an accident.
In other cases, evidence may be documentation that proves or disproves specific claims. Suppose a roller coaster goes off the rails and injures visitors at an amusement park, for example. In that case, the owners may claim that everything was in order. Still, an investigation could uncover documents showing that the ride hadn't been properly inspected in months. No one knew whether it genuinely was safe to operate. Evidence may even be eyewitness testimony, such as when multiple are on the scene at an accident to confirm, verify and corroborate the events that an accident victim claims.
Get Professional Help
While every person has the right to represent themselves in court if they choose to do so, this is often the choice that leads to the likely outcome of losing the case. Gathering evidence and preparing it to be correctly submitted and accepted by a court for a jury is not an easy thing.
If you want to win a case, you need evidence, and personal injury lawyers aren't just experienced in handling the court's protocol; they know how to investigate, gather and present evidence. This may mean talking to experts in accident reconstruction, seeking seasoned professional medical opinions, or getting analysts and other experts to go over security footage or debris to present expert findings.