From a legal perspective, a personal injury is any physical or economic harm caused by another person or entity’s negligence.
For our purposes, we’ll refer to a “defendant” as a person. But in reality, a defendant could be anything that has legal status — a person, company, government agency, school, or nonprofit organization.
“Injury” can be the result of a car accident. It can also be an accident that occurred because of dangerous surroundings (like a slip-and-fall on a slick floor in an office building). It could be that you were wronged in a contract dispute over real property, or it could be that you were the victim of libel or slander.
A personal injury doesn’t necessarily mean that you were physically hurt. It only means that you suffered some kind of harm — physical, emotional, or economic — that was caused by someone who was negligent or reckless.