General Negligence

General Negligence is the basis of all personal injury causes of action. The term is defined as a general failure to act as a reasonable person would under the same circumstances. For the purposes of a personal injury claim, a person is negligent when they cause an injury to another person due to their own unintentional actions.

To prove a cause of action for negligence, you need to prove each of the four elements of the tort. These elements are:

1. Duty,

2. Breach,

3. Causation, and

4. Damages

So, using an automobile accident as an example, you need to prove that the driver who caused the crash had:

* a duty to operate their vehicle properly,

* that they breached that duty by driving improperly,

* that the breach of the duty by the offending driver caused the accident,

* and that you were damaged by the accident, in the form of injuries