When someone’s careless choices change your life—whether it’s a car crash, a fall at a grocery store, or a defective product that leaves you hospitalized—the law gives you a way to demand accountability. You can sue for negligence if someone else’s careless, reckless, or substandard behavior caused harm to you or a loved one.
The only question to answer is not whether you can sue for negligence, but also whether you should sue for negligence. The rest of this guide will help you determine that, but the surest way to get a personalized answer is to call a personal injury attorney at Alexander Law Group today at (408) 289-1776 for your free consultation.
Key Takeaways – Suing for Negligence
- Negligence is the foundation of most injury claims: It occurs when someone fails to act with reasonable care, and that failure harms another person.
- Common examples of harm resulting from negligence include traffic accidents, slip and fall accidents, medical errors, and defective products injuring a consumer: Each of these circumstances can lead to devastating injuries, trauma, significant financial strain, and even the loss of life.
- Victims of negligence can recover compensation for far more than medical bills: A victim like you may also seek damages for lost income, pain and suffering, long-term healthcare costs, emotional distress, and other economic and non-economic harm.
- Insurance companies often try to get out ahead of negligence lawsuits: For their own financial purposes, insurance companies may contact you to make recorded statements, pressure you to accept a low settlement offer, and generally shift the claims process in their favor.
- An experienced personal injury lawyer from Alexander Law Group LLP will tilt the playing field in your favor: A skilled attorney from our team will formulate your case strategy, handle paperwork, lead investigations, and negotiate on your behalf—and, if we need to, lead the legal process all the way to the courtroom.
- The clock is ticking on your case: Statutes of limitations restrict how long you have to file a claim, so you should hire a lawyer from our team as soon as possible to protect your rights and start fighting for the justice you are entitled to.
Understanding Negligence: The Legal Backbone of Injury Law
Negligence sounds simple—carelessness that causes harm—but proving negligence in court is a precise, often multi-month (or even multi-year) process. In California, negligence means that:
- Someone owed a duty of care.
- That someone breached their duty through action or inaction.
- That breach directly caused measurable damages, typically including economic and non-economic damages.
Think of it this way: A driver who texts while driving breaks the duty to operate safely (as it is well-known that texting while driving increases the risk of a crash by three times). If that distraction causes a collision, the injured person can sue for negligence.
Suing for negligence is about holding liable parties responsible for their careless or reckless actions. Even more, though, it’s about delivering tangible benefits to the victim in the form of a financial settlement or judgment.
Case Types Where Negligence Leads to Lawsuits
Negligence is most easily understood through examples. Human beings can be negligent in any environment, including at work, on the road, in a hospital, or even at home. Some of the most common circumstances in which we see someone’s negligence result in another person’s injury or death are:
Car Accidents and Truck Crashes
Auto accidents are one of the most frequent reasons for personal injury claims. Most of these cases involve speeding, distracted driving, impaired driving, and other types of driver negligence.
Yet, the auto accident attorneys at Alexander Law Group LLP know that car, motorcycle, and truck crashes can happen for several reasons, including:
- Operator negligence: This form of negligence occurs when someone fails to obey traffic laws or drives recklessly, with speeding being a factor in about one-third of all fatal motor vehicle accidents.
- Commercial negligence: When trucking companies, delivery services, or other employers ignore maintenance schedules, push drivers beyond safe limits, or engage in other negligence, corporations can become defendants in negligence lawsuits.
- Manufacturer negligence: This kind of negligence occurs when defective features of vehicles—whether the brakes on a motorcycle, the tires on an SUV, or the airbags in a truck—contribute to motor vehicle accidents.
- Municipal negligence: When the roads in a given locale are unsafe, the responsible municipality may be liable for the victims’ damages.
If you or a loved one suffered an injury in a traffic accident, we will identify whose negligence caused the crash.
Premises Liability Incidents, Including Slip-and-Fall Accidents
Property owners have a duty to keep their premises reasonably safe. Negligence occurs when hazards are ignored or remain undiscovered due to the property owner’s failure to implement basic safety measures. Some symptoms of property owner negligence include:
- Slippery floors
- Poor lighting
- Cluttered areas that can cause trips and falls
- Neglected maintenance
- Exposure to elements emitting extreme heat or cold
- Inadequate security
- Exposure to toxic chemicals
- Exposing others to an aggressive animal
Property owners are among the multiple parties that can be liable for injuries resulting from the conditions on a given premises.
Medical Malpractice
Even skilled professionals make errors, but not every error is forgivable. In fact, many medical errors are entirely preventable. When medical professionals fail to meet their duty of care to protect patients, those affected might sue for:
- Surgical mistakes
- Misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis
- Medication errors
- Birth injuries
- Other adverse outcomes resulting from inadequate medical care
One source found that more than 200,000 patients die in the United States each year due to preventable medical errors. Even more suffered an injury.
Dangerous Products
Consumers generally trust that products are safe, but that trust is not always warranted. Victims can file product liability lawsuits when they suffer an injury or lose a loved one because of:
- Defective design: This occurs when a product’s blueprint makes it inherently dangerous, such as a car whose weight distribution makes it prone to rollovers.
- Manufacturing error: This happens when contamination, shoddy materials, assembly mistakes, or other errors during manufacturing make the product unsafe.
- Failure to warn: When companies fail to warn the consumer of product-specific risks or do not issue proper instructions about using the product safely, the manufacturer commits a failure to warn.
Defective product cases often involve corporate defendants, who can be beaten in the legal arena. That said, these defendants typically put forth a tenacious fight against defendants’ cases, and you would be wise to retain a personal injury lawyer to take such defendants on.
Wrongful Death Claims
Here we have the most tragic case type an attorney can encounter: The wrongful death case. When negligence causes a fatality, the surviving family can pursue a wrongful-death lawsuit, which might stem from a:
- Traffic accident
- Workplace accident
- Case of medical malpractice
- Severe slip and fall
Virtually any negligence-related incident can prove fatal, which highlights just how devastating instances of negligence can be.
Recoverable Damages in a Negligence Lawsuit
Negligence doesn’t just cause physical pain. It can touch every corner of a person’s life, from work to relationships, social life, physical health, and peace of mind.
It does not matter that most defendants in negligence-related lawsuits did not wish for their victim(s) to suffer harm. Their negligence posed a foreseeable risk that another person would suffer:
Economic Damages
These are the losses that have a primarily financial nature, and some common examples are:
- Medical expenses
- Lost income
- Diminished earning capacity
- Property damage
- The cost of temporary transportation
- Medical equipment costs
- The expense of updating one’s home to accommodate a disability
We generally calculate these damages by totaling the client’s current expenses, calculating new costs as they arise, and projecting future expenses if necessary.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages have an impact that is not primarily financial. Though we calculate these damages in dollars, such losses primarily affect one’s mind, heart, soul, and well-being. Some examples of non-economic damages are:
- Physical pain
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Emotional anguish
- Psychological distress
- Lost quality of life
- Loss of consortium (which refers to harm to companionship and intimacy for spouses or partners)
In many cases, the value of non-economic damages can be even greater than economic damages, showing that they are equally pivotal to a personal injury and wrongful death case.
Punitive Damages
In rare cases, when conduct is reckless or malicious—for example, a company knowingly selling unsafe products or an individual violently attacking another—the court may award punitive damages to deter future wrongdoing.
What to Expect Once You Decide to Sue for Negligence
Filing a lawsuit may sound intimidating, but your personal injury lawyer from our team will handle nearly everything—as much as we possibly can without asking for your limited assistance. Here’s how the process typically unfolds once you decide to sue for negligence:
Step 1: Investigation and Evidence Collection
We typically kick the lawsuit off through:
- Scene investigation: This process involves gathering photos, videos, and physical evidence from the site of the incident.
- Witness interviews: Here, we record statements while the statements are still reliable.
- Expert consultations: This phase is where we engage specialists to analyze the causes of harm, injuries, liability, and damages.
These steps are akin to building the foundation of your case upon which our future negotiations and legal procedures will rest.
Step 2: Negotiations
Eventually, we will demand the compensation you deserve as a victim of negligence, which involves:
- Communicating with insurers: We will handle adjusters and insurance companies’ legal counsel, protecting you from aggressive tactics and rejecting unfair settlement offers.
- Demanding a fair settlement: We will prepare a detailed letter outlining your injuries and damages and the financial value of those damages.
- Negotiations: We actively fight for the settlement you deserve, rebutting any counterarguments we hear from insurance companies or other liable parties.
Most cases are resolved through negotiations, but some require going to court to secure the compensation the client deserves.
Step 3: Litigation
Should your lawyer from Alexander Law Group LLP need to litigate your case, we will:
- File the complaint: This action formally starts your case in the civil justice system.
- Complete discovery: Discovery allows both sides to exchange documents, take depositions, and gain a better understanding of the other side’s case.
- Complete mediation: Mediation often occurs if settlement talks fail, as a third party comes in to try to get both sides to agree to a settlement.
- Be ready for trial: Should your case require a trial, our experience in the courtroom will shine bright.
Step 4: Resolution and Recovery
After a verdict or settlement, your personal injury attorney ensures that liens and bills are paid and you receive your funds promptly. At Alexander Law Group LLP, our relationship to the client doesn’t end with a check—we stay in touch to ensure clients are truly rebuilding their lives.
Frequently Asked Questions – Lawsuits for Negligence
Many of our clients who are considering filing negligence-related lawsuits want to know:
Do I need to be physically injured to sue for negligence?
Not always. While most cases involve physical harm, emotional or financial damages can also qualify as enough to file a lawsuit. It might be the case when someone suffers severe emotional distress from witnessing an accident caused by negligence.
Can I sue if the insurance company already offered a settlement?
Yes. In fact, insurance companies’ early settlement offers are often far below what victims truly deserve. The insurance company’s offer of a settlement means little. You may lose your right to sue when you agree to accept the settlement offer (in writing).
How much does it cost to hire a negligence lawyer?
At Alexander Law Group LLP, there are no upfront fees or out-of-pocket costs. Our firm works on a contingency basis, which means we only get paid when you do.
What if my loved one can’t file a claim themselves?
If an injury leaves a victim incapacitated or deceased, family members or legal guardians may file on their behalf. We routinely help clients who are facing circumstances such as these.
Why You Should Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer Now
Every negligence claim is subject to a statute of limitations. It is a strict legal deadline for filing your case. In most California personal-injury cases, you have two years from the date of injury (or discovery of harm) to file suit. For claims against government entities, deadlines can be as short as six months.
You deserve to feel seen, heard, and represented by people who care about the outcome as much as you do. When you contact Alexander Law Group LLP, you’re not just hiring litigators. You’re gaining a team that cares.
Don’t wait until it’s too late. Call (408) 289-1776 today or reach out online to schedule your free consultation.
