Arguments Frequently Made By Defendants In A Personal Injury Case

During efforts to resolve a personal injury case, both sides present their arguments. A plaintiff should get prepared for the points that members of the defendant’s legal team are apt to make.

The plaintiff helped to cause this accident.

If a driver has been charged with causing car accident, the lawyers assigned to defend the same driver would seek evidence that the plaintiff was not paying attention to what was on the road. For instance, it might inspect records of phone calls, to see if the plaintiff had been talking on the phone during the moments that led up to the accident’s occurrence.

If someone had tripped and fallen on a business property, the business owner might seek evidence that the victim/plaintiff was distracted at the point where he or she stepped on the spot where the fall took place. For example, a video camera might show the customer/plaintiff studying various items on the shelf at that particular point in time.
The plaintiff had assumed a known risk.

This argument gets used most often if the plaintiff was injured while taking part in sports or recreational activity. The facilities that offer such an activity usually ask the customer to sign a waiver. Personal Injury Lawyer in Barrie know that waiver is supposed to free the facility from the threat of a lawsuit. Still, a waiver only covers any injury that might be anticipated, due to the risks associated with the available activity. Waivers do not cover any injury that might result from the occurrence of an unexpected event.

For example, a signed waiver’s existence would cover a head injury at a facility that had each of its customers don a helmet. On the other hand, it might not cover a broken wrist, especially if no customer was provided with a type of hand protection.

The plaintiff helped to make his or her injury worse.

The defendant’s legal team could make that argument if the plaintiff had failed to visit a hospital, a doctor’s office or a medical clinic within the 24 hours that followed the injury-causing accident. In that way, the administration of any treatment would have been delayed.

A defense team would try to find out if the plaintiff had suffered any earlier injuries. That would help them to make a stronger case. Their argument might hinge on the fact that the earlier injury, though healed, had made that area of the body more susceptible to the effects of potentially harmful movements. A defense team’s approach might be similar, if the plaintiff had a chronic condition. Still, according to the law a defendant is supposed to accept the condition of the accident’s victim. Consequently, defense lawyers are not supposed to dream up a required protection.