West Virginia Law on Personal Injury
Personal injury laws were developed to help resolve non-criminal disputes between private parties following an injury. Typically, the injured party will seek monetary damages from whomever he feels is responsible for his injuries. Most personal injury claims have to do with negligence.
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Negligence
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Negligence is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as "the failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in a similar situation." To prove that someone is negligent, a plaintiff must show that the defendant owed him some sort of duty of care, that the defendant failed to live up to that duty of care and that the defendant's failure caused injury to the plaintiff for which the plaintiff suffered damages.
Modified Comparative Negligence
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West Virginia follows a modified comparative negligence system. Under this system, a plaintiff may not recover damages if he was 50 percent or more at fault for his own injuries.
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Statute of Limitations
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A statute of limitations is a period of time within which a legal action must be pursued. For West Virginia, the statute of limitations for personal injury claims is two years. However, if the injured party is a minor, the time period does not begin to run until that person's 18th birthday.
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References
- Statutes of Limitations for Personal Injury Actions: State by state personal injury statutes of limitations
- Black's Law Dictionary; 3rd Pocket Edition; Brian A. Garner; 2006: Definition of Negligence
- Prosser, Wade and Schwartz's Torts: Cases and Materials; 11th Edition; Victor E. Schwartz, Kathryn Kelly, David F. Partlett; 2005: General personal injury law information
- Photo Credit accident image by ann triling from Fotolia.com
