Your personal injury lawyer will tell you that you don’t need to prove that the defendant was 100% liable for your personal injury to win a settlement. Personal injury lawyers know that the plaintiff usually must prove the defendant’s guilt in a personal injury case to win a settlement. For example, if you are involved in a car accident where the other person was at fault, you need to prove that the other person broke the law if you want to get a settlement.
Personal injury lawyers in Hollister know that there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, many types of cases don’t require the plaintiff to prove that the defendant was guilty of negligence. These cases are referred to as strict liability cases. According to personal injury law, the defendant can be held 100% responsible and is 100% liable in strict liability cases even if he or she did act with a reasonable standard of care.
Strict liability applies to situations where inherently dangerous actions are present
Your personal injury lawyer will tell you that strict liability applies in situations where the defendant knowingly acts in a dangerous and unreasonable manner. Good examples would be:
● Using explosive chemicals
● Transporting toxic substances.
Strict liability and violation of laws
If you are the plaintiff and you can prove that the defendant was drunk at the time of your accident, you’d have a strict liability case because the defendant would have broken a strong traffic law – driving while drunk is never legal anywhere in America.
Strict product liability
If you buy a defective lawnmower and are physically injured, you only need to prove that the defendant is liable because it sold you a defective product. This is the case even if the defendant was unaware of the defect.
Plaintiff’s shared fault and strict liability
If the defendant can prove that you used the wrong blade when running the lawnmower, you probably won’t be able to collect a settlement because you will have shared part of the fault in the strict liability case.
You’ll need to do more than just prove strict liability
Personal injury laws are strict in this sense. If you are the plaintiff, you’ll need to do the following in addition to proving strict liability:
● The defendant caused some of your harm, and
● The harm is settlement worthy
Strict liability is straight forward.However, you have seen that it can sometimes be complex. This is why you need to hire a personal injury lawyer, if you want to win this type of case either in or out of court.