|
|
Personal Injury law
When taking legal action against a third party as a
result of personal injury, there are a number of areas of personal injury
law that you will need to be aware of. Firstly comes the area of determining
who was at fault in the accident in question, generally you will need
to determine a person being negligent, that is through either not taking
reasonable actions that would have prevented the accident (such as failing
to keep their vehicle in a roadworthy state), or though taking actions
that caused the accident to take place (such as running a red traffic
light).
Once the person at fault has been identified, action can be taken against
that person. This will usually be in the form of making a compensation
claim for personal injury to the person’s insurance company, or
directly if the individual doesn’t have any insurance in place.
Many cases are settled out of court through insurance companies, however
if the route cannot be taken, or if a settlement cannot be reached then
legal action is the only option left when pursuing a personal injury claim.
Taking action through the small claims court ups the states, and a number
of areas of personal injury law will need to be taken into account.
The first thing that you need to be aware of is which court the case should
be filed in, as different courts have different subject matter jurisdiction
you will need to file your case with a court that has the jurisdiction
over the event in question. As well as subject matter jurisdiction, personal
jurisdiction needs to be taken into account, the court you file to must
have the power to judge against yourself and the person or entity that
you are taking action against. Personal injury law is a complex field,
which is why the majority of people taking court action hire a personal
injury attorney to represent them and deal with all the legal issues involved
with the case.
Diversity of citizenship
This type of subject matter comes under federal district
courts, and cases that involve people from different states where the
claim amount is at least $75,000 can be heard in these courts.
So, for example, if a Texas based contractor is working in the state that
you reside (say New York) and through their negligence you receive personal
injury and are seeking compensation for $75,000 you will be able to file
the claim under the federal district court in either Texas or New York.
State court jurisdiction
All states are able to hear cases on road traffic accidents,
so no matter where the other person(s) involved in the accident are from,
your case can be heard in the state court where the accident occurred.
In any other type of incident from which a personal injury claim results,
if both parties involved are from the same state, then the case can be
head in the state court.
No matter what court you need to file your case in, you will need to do
so within the applicable statue of limitations. The statute of limitations
defines a time limit for cases to be filed, the aim of this is to keep
the cases fair – it would be unreasonable to file a case against
someone alleging that they crashed into your car thirty years after the
event, as the defendant would probably have no recollection of the event,
and no physical evidence would exist. The time limits imposed vary from
state to state and depend on the type of case in question, for example
cases involving medical conditions with a long period before symptoms
present are given longer time than personal injury claims resulting from
a traffic accident.
The area of personal injury law is very complicated, with a large number
of factors that need to be taken into account and set legal processes
that must be followed, for this reason many people find hiring an experience
personal injury attorney is the best option to get the results from their
case.
|
|
