How the Legal System Determines Liability for Settlement Purposes

In the legal system, you might encounter specific terms. You may use those terms outside of the courtroom in regular conversations. In courtroom settings, though, these words and phrases mean very particular things.

The term “liability” meets these standards. You can say you hold someone liable outside a courtroom, and it could have some different connotations. In a courtroom during a personal injury trial, it means just one thing.

We’ll discuss this term’s meaning in a courtroom setting now. We’ll also talk about how the legal system determines liability for settlement purposes.

Negligence Cases

In personal injury law, you’ll sometimes encounter negligence cases. Negligence means that someone or some entity didn’t take the proper care when they did something. It can also mean they didn’t take some action that our legal system and society in general demand.

Proving liability in a negligence case becomes crucial. That’s because if you can’t prove liability, you can’t collect the money you feel the defendant owes you.

What is Liability?

Liability means you have a responsibility, especially from a legal standpoint. Let’s say you mopped the floor in your store, and you now have a wet floor. 

You should put up a “wet floor” sign. If you don’t do that, and someone slips and falls when they walk across that wet patch, the court system will likely feel you have liability in this case.

That’s one of the most common scenarios you might encounter if you ever get into personal injury law. Personal injury cases also come about if companies make products that harm people. Other times, you might have dog bite cases. Someone’s dog gets loose and runs through the neighborhood. If it bites someone, the court system says that person has liability because they didn’t control their pet.

Many other personal injury cases exist, and also wrongful death cases. When lawyers argue them in court, they’re arguing about liability. Liability, once the lawyers and the jury determine it, can impact who pays damages and how much they must pay.

Breach of Duty

When the court system tries figuring out liability, it often considers what lawyers and judges call a “breach of duty.” This term comes up in these cases all the time.

Duty means that some company, entity, or person owes someone a certain behavior. Again, they owe them this behavior as the law requires, but sometimes also as their profession demands. They might owe this person a behavior that society requires as well.

For example, let’s say you went in for surgery, and the doctor who operated on you screwed it up badly. Maybe they opened up your left leg when you needed right leg surgery. They made this mistake, and now, you’re using them.

These cases constitute medical malpractice, and when a doctor didn’t perform their duties as their profession required, that means a breach of duty took place. If you want money from that doctor, your lawyer must establish that a breach of duty occurred, so this doctor has liability.

In any other personal injury case, these same arguments happen. Your lawyer must show that a duty of care or duty of behavior existed, whether legally, morally, or ethically, and that this person or entity did not fulfill it. 

If the jury agrees, you will likely get the money you’re seeking. If they disagree, then you might get nothing.

Precedent

In these cases, the jury members aren’t legal experts. Usually, they’re just ordinary citizens who the random jury selection produced. They only know what the judge tells them about the laws they’re enforcing.

When two lawyers argue about the fault in a trial, they’re establishing liability, or at least, that’s their main goal. If they can argue so that the jury agrees that either the defendant or plaintiff has liability for an injury or death, they will dispense justice accordingly.

However, think about lawsuits like the medical malpractice case we mentioned earlier. Presumably, these jurors aren’t doctors. It’s doubtful they’d work in the medical field at all since the defendant’s lawyer would probably dismiss any jurors with medical backgrounds.

To figure out whether the doctor did anything wrong in the medical malpractice case we mentioned, the jury must consider precedent. That’s a huge determining factor when juries determine liability for settlement purposes.

The lawyers will argue the matter’s precedent. In medical malpractice cases, if we use that example again, the defendant’s lawyer might argue that their client didn’t violate the care standard. The plaintiff’s lawyer, on the other hand, would probably say the doctor did violate it, and they will cite medical precedent that proves it.

How Does Establishing Precedent Work?

The plaintiff’s lawyer might call on an expert witness. They can ask them about what duties a doctor has when they operate on a patient. The expert witness will probably talk about what regularly happens in operations and what procedures a doctor should reasonably follow.

If the jury agrees, based on the expert witness testimony or other evidence, that the defendant violated the care standard, then they should hold that defendant liable under the law. They should then pay damages. The jury can also consider the precedent that similar cases established when determining how much the defendant should pay the plaintiff.

This doesn’t just happen with medical malpractice cases. In personal injury cases where the jury must determine liability for settlement purposes, they will consider how a person or business should reasonably act.

If most people know they should keep a vicious dog on a leash, they will probably award the plaintiff a settlement if they let their dog run free. If the average storekeeper knows they should put up a wet floor sign after mopping the floor, and they didn’t do it, they should reward the plaintiff damages for their broken leg.

Once you understand this concept, you’ll see how negligent actions, liability, and settlements all tie in together. All these come into play in virtually all personal injury lawsuits.