An understanding of the fundamentals about injuries should help an injured victim to identify his or her options.

Usually the person named at-fault must cover the costs associated with a given victim’s injuries.

Did the accident take place in a no-fault state? In that case, the insurance company of the claimant/victim must compensate the injured policyholder. For any accident that did not take place in a no-fault state, the defendant’s insurance company must compensate the victim.

If the defendant did not carry insurance, or if the limits on the defendant’s policy were very low, then the compensation for injuries would be determined by the terms of any uninsured motorist or underinsured motorist option. The owner of the car that was hit by the responsible driver would need to have purchased those same options.

A lawyer for the claimant/victim would need to prove negligence on the part of the defendant.

The first element in such a proof would come from evidence that the defendant had a duty to the plaintiff. All drivers must do their best to keep from colliding with another driver.

The 2nd element would come from evidence that the defendant had breached his or her duty. Mention in the police report of a traffic ticket would qualify as such evidence. Other statements in that same report might verify the existence of negligence on the part of the defendant.

The 3rd element could come from the claimant’s medical report. The treating physician should be able to explain how the details of the accident helped to support the claim that the defendant’s breach had caused the reported injury.

The last of the 4 elements would be proof that the claimant had suffered measurable losses. The medical bills should provide that proof as per Injury Lawyer in Ottawa.

The attorney for the defendant might allege that the claimant was partly responsible for the accident, or for the resulting injury.

The lawyer for the claimant would need to fight those same allegations. If the court were to acknowledge the truth of any such allegation, then the size of the claimant’s compensation would be reduced.

The size of the reduction would depend on the rules in the state where the accident took place, and on the degree to which the claimant was shown to have contributed to the accident’s occurrence, or to the severity of the reported injury. In states that followed the principle of contributory negligence, the claimant might not get a penny in compensation.

The situation would be different in those states that followed the principle of comparative negligence. In cases of that nature, the size of the reduction would correspond inversely to the degree to which the claimant had contributed to the accident, or the injury.