Compensation & Insurance: Personal Injury - Guides
Personal Injury
7. Evidence & Proof
Firm / Chambers:
Last updated: 13 Aug 2015
- In order to be successful in your claim you must prove fault or negligence.
- Once the claim has commenced you or your lawyer will start investigating the circumstances of the accident in order to prove fault or negligence on the part of the respondent.
- Negligence must be proved in almost every type of personal injury claim in order to be successful and receive compensation.
- Providing proof may involve hiring an expert to provide an opinion on what caused the accident and whether the injury resulted from it.
- This evidence needs to be sufficient to establish that the other party did something wrong or failed to act as expected by a reasonable person to avoid injury to others. The harm that you have suffered must have been a foreseeable result of the conduct of the other person.
- Another thing to consider when proving negligence is the situation where more than one person caused the accident leading to your injury. If more than one party is involved there may be contributory negligence on the part of the third party. This means that more than one person contributed to the accident and must therefore take some portion of blame and pay a portion of compensation to you.
- Disputes about the amount of contribution the other party should make are common. In these circumstances a lawyer’s advice can be useful. A lawyer will be up to date with recent cases and case law precedents. These can provide an indication of what the court has decided previously in similar situations. These precedents are commonly consulted to negotiate agreements about how much each party should contribute based on past court decisions.
- Personal injury law requires that the parties co-operate to a certain extent by sharing information about the accident and injury and the impact the injury has had on the claimant. This cooperation primarily refers to the obligation to disclose information to the other party to facilitate resolution of the dispute. Every report, document or other piece of information that forms part of the claim needs to be provided to the other party within a certain time period.
- This disclosure prevents any unnecessary surprises when the claim is going to be finalised.
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