Gainesville is one of North Central Florida's largest cities, with more than 140,000 residents. However, that number doesn't represent the influx of tourists that flock to the city every year, students that attend the University of Florida, and Florida Gators fans. Including those numbers, millions of people travel through the area annually. As a result, there are plenty of opportunities to be hurt through the negligent actions of another individual, whether it be a car accident, an assault because of negligent security, or a boating accident.
When you need the help of experienced personal injury lawyers in Gainesville, Morgan and Morgan Law Firm offers some of the finest. You deserve to have the best representation in your legal matter, and our results speak for themselves. We try more cases than most law firms, our resources available to help clients are unmatched, and we have delivered winning outcomes to the tune of more than $20 billion in our history.
We believe that every client should be entitled to the best chance of success. That's why we have attorneys specializing in every area of personal injury law. We take the burden of arguing and negotiating with hostile parties off your shoulders and pursue justice on your behalf so that you can recover the maximum amount of compensation available.
How Do You Prove Negligence in Gainesville, Florida?
We understand that it's essential to be compensated after an accident or incident results in some injury to you or a loved one. However, not all accidents automatically permit recovery for financial damages. Florida laws require that injured parties prove negligence was a factor that resulted in their injuries. Proving negligence requires the following elements be met:
- A duty of care was owed to the plaintiff
- The defendant violated the duty of care to the plaintiff
- The plaintiff's injuries were caused by the defendant's breach of duty
- The plaintiff suffered damages as a result of the breach
Let's break this down into a real-life scenario. Suppose you suffered financial losses because of a data breach at your accountant's office. One of the employees opened an email they shouldn't have that installed spyware into the system. As a result, a cybercriminal stole your identity and opened credit cards and other accounts in your name, causing a tsunami of financial hardship and frustration.
The accountant had an implied duty to keep your data safe. That's element one. The accountant violated their duty when they allowed spyware to be installed in their system. There should have been strict company protocols and security measures in place to anticipate such an event, but there were not. That's element two. Next, the data breach was a direct link to the criminal stealing your information (element three). Because of their negligence, you lost money and suffered emotional distress (element four.)
Of course, depending on your legal matter, there may be other nuances to negligence. For example, we live in a no-fault insurance state that dictates parties may not sue each other for injuries from a motor vehicle accident unless a certain threshold of injury is met. Likewise, the victim of a slip and fall accident has to show that a property owner was aware of a dangerous condition and didn't do anything to repair or warn visitors of the hazard that led to their injury. Still, almost every personal injury case involves the concept of negligence and fault.
Negligent actions (or, in some cases, inactions) revolve around whether the defendant acted in a manner that a reasonable person would under similar circumstances. For example, suppose you were seriously hurt in a car accident that allowed you to step out of Florida's no-fault insurance law. In that case, a jury might look to see if the other driver ran a red light or broke any other traffic laws. Another example is medical malpractice. A great deal hinges on whether your doctor used judgment that would not reflect the standards of their profession. Instead, they did something that no other reasonable doctor would do if confronted with the same situation.
Methods to Prove Negligence
Generally, negligence is proven through evidence, whether direct or circumstantial. Direct evidence is usually something material or matter-of-fact, like eyewitness testimony, police reports, emails, texts, photos, videos, and such. Circumstantial evidence, however, requires individuals to put the pieces together through what evidence has been presented. Here are a few examples.
Direct Evidence:
- Security cameras show you slipped and fell because of debris in a department store walkway.
- An eyewitness testifies they saw a driver texting on their phone right before they hit your car.
- A coworker witnessed you being harassed after you filed for workers' compensation.
- You have a video recording of your elderly mother describing abuse at her nursing home.
- A doctor indicates in your medical records that your carpal tunnel syndrome is directly linked to your job as a data processor.
Circumstantial Evidence:
- An eyewitness sees a person fitting the description of the defendant vandalizing your property.
- Skid marks indicate a negligent driver did not react in time as a reasonable driver would.
- An accident reconstructionist uses their skills to demonstrate fault in a car accident.
- An employee in your mother's nursing home overhears how much another employee hates taking care of your mother, who is later suspected of abusing her.
- A property owner has been shopping around for contractors for months to fix "a broken staircase," indicating they were aware of a dangerous condition.
Civil litigation is far different from criminal cases in that the evidentiary standards are lower. Instead of proving your case beyond a reasonable doubt, as in criminal cases, a civil case only requires showing that a conclusion must be met by a preponderance of the evidence. Here is what these terms mean:
A preponderance of the evidence - This means that the evidence the plaintiff puts forth is more than likely to demonstrate what happened accurately. A jury might be instructed to rule in the plaintiff's favor if the evidence is 51% or more supportive of their argument.
Beyond a reasonable doubt - This is the highest standard of proof which is usually the requirement for criminal convictions, and rightly so. It means the prosecution must demonstrate that the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that the defendant committed the crime, and no other logical determination could be made based on the evidence.
While proving a civil case is not as difficult as a criminal one, our personal injury lawyers in Gainesville will be able to anticipate what kind of arguments the defendant will put up in an attempt to sway the jury to their favor. You must be able to foresee and prepare for the potential defenses that will be put forth so your strategy pokes holes in their arguments.