In any personal injury lawsuit, there are certain elements you must prove in order to have a valid claim. You and your traumatic brain injury lawyer must be able to prove four crucial elements in order to recover compensation for the damages you suffered.
Duty of Care: The responsible party owed you a certain duty of care that you must work with your traumatic brain injury attorney to prove. Basically, the person whose negligence caused your injury was acting in a negligent manner when they should not have been. Let’s say that a nursing home staff member notices a puddle of spilled water on the floor in a hallway. They decided not to clean it up and instead left it for someone else to clean. This staffer owes a duty of care to every resident in the nursing home, so failing to clean the puddle is a violation of that duty.
Violation of the Duty of Care: Failing to clean the puddle of water would be an obvious violation of the duty of care owed to nursing home residents. The staffer should have cleaned the spill right away or put up a wet floor sign if they were unable to clean it at that moment.
The Violation Directly Caused Your Injury: You must then connect your injury with that violation. In keeping with the above example, if a resident suffers a broken hip after slipping and falling from the wet floor, this is an easy connection to prove.
You Suffered Actual Damages: Lastly, you must show that you suffered actual damages from the injury. These damages could be medical bills, physical therapy costs, and much more.