In Part 1 of this article, you learned that not all accidents and injuries that take place in Calgary—still one of the safest cities in Canada and the world—are grounds for a personal injury case. Personal injury cases exist to compensate you for pain and suffering, medical bills, lost earnings, and a reduced ability to engage in the tasks and hobbies you enjoyed prior to your accident. If your injuries are so minor that they do not impact your life in this way, it may not be economically viable to pursue a personal injury claim.
There is also a second criteria that can help you determine if you might have a viable personal injury claim and should contact an experienced Calgary personal injury lawyer. Even if you are seriously injured, you only have a legal claim if your injuries were received as a result of someone else’s negligence. This is often a more complicated legal question, and is at the heart of every Calgary personal injury claim.
How Do I Know if Someone Else is Liable For My Calgary Accident and Injuries?
The first thing to ask yourself in determining if someone else is responsible for causing your injuries is, where did the accident occur? If the accident occured on your property, the odds are you do not have a viable claim—as the property owner, you would be responsible for maintaining a safe environment and thus responsible for your own injuries. Exceptions to this do exist, such as shoddy work by a professional you hired to install a floor, run new wiring in your home, or complete other tasks that created a hazard you were unaware of but that the professional should have known about and prevented.
If your injury took place on a public road or sidewalk and involved another person, a report from the Calgary Police can help determine who was at fault for an accident—if the other party failed to follow the rules of the road and that is what caused the accident that led to your injuries, the other party is likely liable for your injuries. Police reports are not irrefutable, however, and establishing negligence in these types of accident cases can be complex. In some instances, the City of Calgary may be responsible for injuries that take place on poorly maintained roads, sidewalks, parks or other city-owned property.
If you are injured in a Calgary business or in someone else’s Calgary home, the business or homeowner may be liable for your injuries. There are still exceptions to this, however; if you slip and fall for no discernible reason (which happens to the best of us at times), or otherwise injure yourself in a manner that has nothing to do with an existing hazard at the property, then there is nothing the property owner could have done to prevent your accident—your injuries were not a result of their negligence, so they would not be liable.
Again, negligence can be a complex and difficult thing to establish, and every Calgary personal injury case is unique. If after reading this, you’re still unsure whether your situation has grounds for a personal injury claim, please contact our dedicated Calgary personal injury lawyers for a free initial consultation.