Most personal injury lawsuits are based on negligence. Negligence refers to behavior that is generally careless and is the cause of the accident or has contributed to the accident. Click on the links below to know more about negligence and personal injury.

• Negligence: Background: A brief overview of the legal theory of negligence.

• Negligence Case Elements: This section contains explanations of all of the essential elements of a negligence case, including duty, breach, cause in fact, proximate cause, and damages.

• Proving Fault: What is Negligence?: This section includes a guide to the elements of fault as well as illustrative examples of each element.

• Standard of Care and the “Reasonable Person”: Learn about how the “reasonable person” standard of care is defined and applied.

• Defenses to Negligence Claims: In addition to disproving an element, there are a number of other defenses to negligence, including comparative fault and assumption of risk.

• Contributory and Comparative Negligence: Under contributory and comparative negligence approaches, the injured party’s fault is weighed against that of the defendant.