Defendant
In personal injury law, the defendant is the party you sue for compensation. People also use this term to refer to the subject of a personal injury claim, even in settlement negotiations. Depending on the circumstances, the defendant and the person who caused your injury might not be the same party.
Common Defendants in Personal Injury Claims
The following parties are disproportionately likely to find themselves defendants in personal injury claims and lawsuits:
- Drivers: Anyone who causes a car accident, a truck accident, a motorcycle accident, a bicycle accident, or a pedestrian accident that results in injuries.
- Property owners: The owner of real property (and buildings) can bear liability for injuries to someone injured by a dangerous condition on the property. In rare cases, a property owner might even be liable for trespasser injuries.
- Employers: An employer can bear liability (under the workers’ compensation system) for their employee’s job-related injuries.
- Product manufacturers and distributors: A company can be held liable if it produces or distributes defective products that cause injuries.
- Government entities: Local, state, and federal agencies may be liable for injuries that occur on public property or injuries caused by the misconduct of one of their employees.
- Dog owners: In Colorado, a dog owner can bear liability for injuries caused by a dog attack, even if the dog has never before shown aggressive tendencies.
Ultimately, anyone except a small child or a mentally incompetent person can become a defendant in a personal injury claim.
Defendants in Negligence Claims
Negligence claims are the most common types of personal injury claims. In a negligence claim, you assert that someone injured you through careless behavior-–by running a stop sign, for example. There are five facts that you have to prove to win a negligence claim:
- Duty of care: The defendant owed you a duty of care. This is almost always the case.
- Breach of duty: Whatever the nature of the defendant’s duty of care, they failed to meet its demands.
- Damages: Did you break your leg? Did you suffer economic losses? Did you endure emotional distress or pain and suffering? These are some of the types of damages you might qualify for.
- Actual cause: Actual cause is present if you wouldn’t have suffered your injury but for the defendant’s breach of their duty of care.
- Proximate cause: Proximate cause is present if your injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s breach of duty.
That standard of proof for these claims is ‘a preponderance of the evidence’ (more likely than not), not ‘guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.’ That makes a personal injury claim a lot easier to prove than a criminal charge. You can also lose some or all of your damages if you were partly responsible for the accident.
Defendants Who Are Liable Regardless of Fault
‘Strict liability’ means liability without proof of fault. This might not seem fair, but it makes sense under certain circumstances.
Strict Product Liability
Strict product liability is liability imposed on the manufacturer or distributor of a defective product if a defective product injures you (imagine defective automobile airbags, for example).
For example, you can sue a manufacturer and win without proving that the manufacturer was at fault. Instead, you need to prove that the product was defective.
Vicarious Liability
A defendant faces vicarious liability when they bear liability for the wrongdoing of another party.
- Product Liability: In a product liability claim, the defendant can be anyone in the product’s chain of distribution. Vicarious liability arises when you win a lawsuit against a distributor for a manufacturing defect, even though the distributor didn’t even manufacture the product. This system works particularly well for accident victims when the manufacturer is an overseas entity.
- Employers: Under the principle of respondeat superior, employers bear liability for the negligent acts of their employees, if those acts occurred within the scope of employment. The employer itself doesn’t have to be negligent to bear liability.
- Principal-agent relationships: Principals can bear liability for the actions of their agents when the agents are acting within their scope of authority.
- Partnership liability: Partners in a business can bear liability for another partner’s misconduct as long as the at-fault partner committed the misconduct in the ordinary course of the partnership’s business.
- Parents: Parents can bear liability for damages caused by their minor children under certain circumstances.
- Vehicle owner-driver: A vehicle owner can bear liability for an accident caused by another person’s negligent driving if the negligent party was driving the car with the owner’s permission.
Employer-employee vicarious liability is probably the most common.
Special Case: Workers’ Compensation
An employer can bear liability for their employers’ workplace injuries. If the employer carries workers’ compensation insurance (as the law generally requires), workers’ compensation insurance will actually pay the claim.
The employee does not have to prove the employer was at fault to win their claim. Since workers’ compensation is an administrative remedy, you don’t pursue your claim in court
The Statute of Limitations
You cannot win your claim if you miss the statute of limitations deadline for filing a lawsuit. In Colorado, the applicable statute of limitations is usually two years after the accident. However, there are exceptions; for instance, the time limit is three years for motor vehicle accident cases.
A Denver Personal Injury Lawyer Can Get You Started on the Path Toward Justice
A Denver personal injury lawyer can help you assert your personal injury claim in more ways than you might imagine. You don’t need to worry about paying hundreds of dollars an hour in legal fees.
Under the contingency fee system that most personal injury lawyers use, your attorney’s fees come out of whatever amount your lawyer is able to recover for you. And if you don’t win, your attorney’s fees will total precisely $0.00.
