It is not always clear who is liable for an accident. In some cases, multiple people might share blame. In others, a business or organization might be liable. It is important to speak to an accident attorney about your situation and injuries as multiple parties might be liable for your accident that resulted in paralysis.
Determining who should be held liable begins with understanding how your accident happened. While car accidents are a common cause of injuries such as paralysis, there might be other reasons. Injuries at work, on someone else’s property, or other less typical accidents might also cause paralysis. Proving liability also depends on whether the defendant acted negligently or intended to cause harm. No matter what, you should file a lawsuit to get compensation for your injuries and other damages. Paralysis is incredibly serious and often a lifelong condition, and you should be justly compensated.
What Kind of Accidents Lead to Paralysis?
A myriad of accidents might result in paralysis. People often associate a serious injury like paralysis with an equally devastating accident. While this is sometimes the case, paralysis can also occur in seemingly minor accidents. Tripping down the stairs or slipping on a patch of ice might leave someone paralyzed the same as a car accident.
Auto Accidents
Car accidents often leave victims with multiple serious injuries, including paralysis. There might be numerous possible causes of a car accident. In many cases, other negligent drivers on the road create unsafe conditions that lead to the accident. For example, violating traffic laws, inattentive driving, or drunk driving are serious risk factors and might cause severe collisions. It is not unheard of for car accident victims to suffer injuries that lead to paralysis. If you were hurt, and you are not listed as the at-fault party, your lawyer might be able to help you recover compensation.
Workplace Accidents
Accidents might also happen in your place of work. While some places of work are inherently dangerous, others tend to be safer. Risker environments like construction sites, factories, or workplaces with heavy machinery might pose a greater risk of accidents, but safer workplaces like offices are not accident-free.
An accident might be caused because a coworker negligently operated a large piece of machinery or dangerous tool. This is often a situation found on construction sites or in factories. Sometimes, negligence occurs because employers and supervisors fail to provide adequate safety measures or training.
Even workplaces that are considered safe and boring, like an office, can be the scene of serious accidents. Slipping and falling down the stairs in your office might leave you with multiple injuries, including paralysis.
Premises Liability
Sometimes accidents happen because someone did not take proper care of their property. When people expect guests or visitors, they have a duty to make the premises safe. Generally, this duty extends to repairing and removing any known hazards and making reasonable inspections for possible unknown hazards. If a property owner failed to remove a hazard they knew about or reasonably should have known about, they might be liable for an accident.
Premises liability cases often involve slip and fall accidents. For example, a visitor might slip and fall on the ice if someone does not shovel their icy walkway. If a person falls just the right way, they might injure their neck or spinal cord and become paralyzed. Icy walkways are not the only way a person might be injured. Things like uneven floors, rickety stairs, or messes that have not been cleaned up can lead to injuries.
Other Kinds of Accidents
Many accidents might cause someone to become paralyzed, not just the ones mentioned here. Some accidents, like car accidents or slip and falls, are relatively common. A person might instead be paralyzed because of a freak accident or other rare occurrence. For example, animal attacks, assaults, diving accidents, or sports injuries might leave a person paralyzed. In any accident, you should contact an attorney about your case.
Liability for Accidents Resulting in Paralysis
An attorney can help you understand who to hold liable in your case. Making this determination involves figuring out how and why your accident happened. Even in circumstances where you feel like nobody could have prevented the accident, someone might still be responsible.
Many lawsuits are filed against a single person. For example, if you were paralyzed in a car accident, you might sue one other driver. If you were paralyzed in a premises liability accident, you might sue the person who owned the property where the accident happened. The identity of the person liable depends on where and how your accident happened.
In other cases, multiple people might share liability. For example, many car accidents are caused by the negligence of several drivers coming together. If Driver A rear-ended you and pushed you into an intersection, then Driver B T-boned you in the intersection because they were traveling over the speed limit and could not stop, you can sue both drivers for the accident.
Sometimes, a person is not liable. Instead, a business entity or organization is to blame. This is often the case when an employee on the job causes a paralysis-inducing accident. If you were hit by a taxi driver and ended up paralyzed, you can sue the driver in addition to their employer, the taxi company.
Proving Liability for Accidents Resulting in Paralysis
Determining who you can hold liable depends on what caused your accident. While most accidents are caused by negligence, some are caused by a person’s intentional conduct. Establishing negligence involves showing four important legal elements: duty, breach, causation, and damages.
Duty is the defendant’s legal duty of care they owed to the plaintiff. This duty will vary depending on the circumstances. For example, on the road, all drivers have a duty to drive with reasonable safety under the circumstances while obeying the traffic laws. The breach is whatever the defendant did that violated their duty. Causation refers to the connection between the breach and the accident. Your paralysis must be the direct result of the defendant’s breach. Finally, you must show that your injuries and damages are real, not just possibilities.
If someone in your case fits all four elements, they can be used for your injuries and damages. Alternatively, you can sue someone who intentionally caused the accident that led to your paralysis. You will need a police report for your accident, if available, to help you prove your case. Intent is somewhat harder to prove because we cannot be inside the defendant’s mind to determine their intentions. However, using evidence from the scene, an attorney can help you prove the defendant meant to cause the accident.