Who can be held responsible when a person is injured in Florida?

The law of personal injury is concerned with determining who may be liable for your injuries and how much they should be required to pay for your damages. Personal injury is part of the law of torts, the legal term that includes all types of injuries to people and their property. There are a number of principles that apply to the law of torts and personal injury. These principles recognize degrees of fault on the part of the person who causes the injury. In general, the degrees of fault can be described as negligence, intentional fault, and strict liability.

Negligence

Negligence is a term that is essential to tort law. People are expected to act reasonably and take ordinary care to ensure that their actions or the actions of others under their control, do not cause harm. If they fall below that standard, and someone is injured or their property damaged as a result, then they become negligent. Negligence does not mean that the person deliberately intended to cause harm; it simply means that they did not take reasonable care or act as a reasonable person would have. The degree of care varies with the circumstances of each case. Likewise, a plaintiff has a duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances on his own behalf.

Strict Liability

Strict liability states that one does not have to prove negligence to recover damages. In the case of product liability, the law now holds that you do not have to prove the manufacturer was negligent if someone is injured while using a product. They only have to prove the product was defective when it left the hands of the particular seller and that it was the proximate cause of the injuries. A lawsuit can be brought against anyone participating in the chain of manufacture for that product, including the manufacturer, designer, or the retail store.

Intentional Tort

An intentional tort refers to a personal injury caused by a person who has the intent to cause harm. It may also refer to injury caused by willful or reckless conduct. Intentional torts include assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel and slander, etc.