Indiana Personal Injury Law Overview

Personal injury law is a broad area of law that covers accidents such as vehicle accidents and premises liability accidents. It also covers medical malpractice and defective products. Personal injury also includes financial and emotional injury in cases such as identity theft and defamation of character.

Negligence

In order to prove fault in a personal injury case, the plaintiff must prove negligence, which is the failure to show reasonable care. Negligence can consist of both inaction and action. For instance, if a business owner fails to clean up a spill and someone falls and gets hurt, his inaction that caused the injury would be considered negligent.

Indiana law follows the doctrine of "modified comparative negligence," which means if you were partly responsible for your injuries, you can still collect damages from other responsible parties. In Indiana as long as you were less than 50% responsible for your injuries, you can collect.

Indiana law also follows the doctrine of several liability, which means if multiple parties were responsible for the plaintiff's injuries then they must all pay their share. If one party is unable to pay his share, the other parties cannot be held responsible for his percentage of the awarded damages.

Statute of Limitations

All states have time limits, or statutes of limitations, regarding the amount of time you have to file a personal injury suit after the injury occurred. In Indiana, you have two years to file suit in most personal injury cases.

Compensation

In Indiana, you may be entitled to compensation for:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Loss of earning capacity
• Permanent disability
• Disfigurement
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Loss of companionship

If you live in Indiana and feel you may have a personal injury case, please contact an experienced Indiana personal injury attorney in your area today.