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Personal injury is a very wide term. It means not only bodily injury but also psychological injury. For example:- if a person fractures his leg by falling on a wet floor; he has not only suffered physical injury but also humiliation of falling in public. So, the basic objective of personal injury law is to safeguard the interests of the innocent injured party.
Personal injury law originated and grew out of the English system of justice and its principles were adopted by the United States system of justice and continued to grow. Today, it has become so vital that every state in the U.S.A. has specific personal injury law claims. Personal injury lawyer's basic objective is compensation to the plaintiff for the physical/emotional injury suffered due to an action (intentional/unintentional) of others. Personal injury law is also referred to as Tort law. Tort is a legal term referring to a civil wrong which might be intentional or unintentional. It deals with economic and non economic damages to a person's property, reputation and rights. Causes of Personal injury law claims could be classified under two broad categories –
• Negligence
• Intentional torts
A. Negligence
Personal injury lawsuit is classified as a "negligence case" when due to someone's negligence /recklessness/ carelessness an injury is caused to the plaintiff. Common negligent actions are:-
• Medical malpractices
• Defective products
• "Slip and fall" cases
• Automobile accidents
• Accidents at work
• Aviation accidents
• Food poisoning
• Incorporates mental/dental injuries
These also include industrial diseases such as chest diseases, occupational deafness and occupational stress.
B. Intentional Torts
A wrongful act done intentionally and not accidentally, inflicting injury on plaintiff is termed as an intentional tort. It includes-
1. Assault and Battery
In personal injury law, assault and battery are two distinct terms. ASSAULT is a threat of violence whereas battery is physical violence. Offensive touching of a person or an object/substance put in action by that person comes under the crime of battery. Molestation is a crime which comes under BATTERY. If a plaintiff has not been touched, but, threatened, then the crime is called an assault.
2. Child Abuse
Defamation
In terms of personal injury law, defamation is a false claim that harms or threatens to harm the reputation of a person, product, group or any entity .Defamation could be written as well as oral. Defaming someone in print is called libel and a false spoken statement about someone is called slander. Huge amounts could be recovered from such cases of personal injury law for inflicting mental as well as physical torture.
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