A personal injury lawsuit against your business can cost you plenty. You are at risk of both financial and non-financial losses, such as damage to your reputation, which could affect your business growth and profitability for years to come.
You might believe that it is inevitable that you will need to pay damages, whether through a negotiated settlement or a finding of liability by a court. However, a personal injury plaintiff must prove negligence, which is not easy.
Proving negligence requires showing that you breached a duty you owed to the plaintiff and that breach caused their injury. They must also prove their damages.
There are several defense strategies you can use to defend against a personal injury claim. One common strategy is to attack causation.
Direct and proximate cause
Causation means proving that your negligence was the cause of the injury. A plaintiff must prove direct cause and proximate cause.
Direct cause means a cause that leads directly to an event. Proximate cause means an event that is a substantial factor in the injury.
Pre-existing injuries are one of the most common ways to attack causation. This occurs when the plaintiff already had a pre-existing condition or injury that caused the injury.
When you argue a pre-existing condition, you are acknowledging that your conduct was negligent in the sense that you breached a duty to the plaintiff, but that your breach did not cause the injuries.
Successfully asserting a pre-existing condition defense often requires a thorough review of the plaintiff’s past medical records years to decades before the accident to find any medical condition or diagnosis that you can use as an argument that the injuries were already present.
Comparative negligence
Another way to attack causation is by using Alaska’s comparative negligence law. Under this law, a plaintiff’s injuries are reduced in proportion to their own negligence.
For example, assume the plaintiff is pursuing $100,000 in damages after a slip and fall injury at your building, asserting that you were negligent by having a wet and slippery floor.
If you can provide evidence that you had a large sign warning customers of the slippery floor around the area and the plaintiff failed to notice the sign, you can argue that their own negligence contributed to their fall. Therefore, your negligence was not the complete cause of their injuries.
In that case, a jury might find that you were 30% at fault and the plaintiff was 70% at fault, which would reduce the amount the plaintiff receives from $100,000 to $30,000.
A defense based on contributory negligence might not bar the plaintiff’s recovery altogether, since it is often difficult to prove one party was entirely responsible while the other party bore no responsibility at all. But a reduction in the amount your business is liable for can make a huge difference to the overall outcome.
Defending against causation is just one way to defend your business against a personal injury claim. It is important to act quickly when you learn you are being sued and take steps to protect your business.