What is a Personal Injury Claim?
What is recognized as a personal injury?
A personal injury is recognized as an injury to body, mind, or emotions. It is not considered an injury to property. For example, if someone pushes you down and that fall breaks your watch, that is not a personal injury case. But if that fall breaks your arm, that would be considered a personal injury case.
These kinds of damages can be prosecuted as something someone did or did not do (negligence). For example, someone could intentionally trip you in the store and you could break your arm. That is something they did to harm you. Or the store employee could have mopped the floor and not put up a sign so you slipped and broke your arm. That is something they did not do (negligence).
Where does the personal injury area of law come from? You may be familiar with the word “tort”. If you’ve ever watched a TV show about anything related to the legal world, you’ve probably heard that word. A tort is a civil wrong (not a criminal wrong) that someone commits that makes another person experience loss, damage, or harm which they can be legally held responsible for in court. Torts can include a loss, damage, or harm to constitutional rights, property, economic means, reputation, emotions, privacy, property, or physical harm.
Personal injury law is a type of tort. Specifically, personal injury deals with physical, mental, or emotional harm.
