Personal Injury Lawyers » What is the Plaintiff’s Duty to Mitigate Damages?
The Injured Party Has a Duty to Mitigate (or Prevent Further Aggravation of) Their Injuries Following an Accident
If you’ve been injured by someone else’s negligent or reckless conduct, it’s important that you take certain actions to preserve your case against the party responsible for your injuries. One of those actions is to “mitigate” your injuries; that is, you need to take action to prevent your injuries from being aggravated. Failure to mitigate your injuries may prevent you from recovering the entire amount of compensation you deserve for your injuries. Thus, to ensure that your injuries are fully compensated, you should retain an experienced personal injury attorney that knows how to assist injury victims with mitigating their injuries. The attorneys at Our Law Offices have the skill and experience necessary to advise you on how to mitigate your damages so you aren’t stuck paying for your own injuries.
Personal Injury Victims Have a Duty to Mitigate Their Damages
Texas law requires personal injury victims to prevent their injuries from becoming aggravated by acting in a manner that should minimize the harm they’ve suffered and seeking medical attention when necessary. Usually, this means that a personal injury victim should take care not to engage in activities that will aggravate their injuries, such as participating in contact sports or lifting heavy objects. Moreover, personal injury victims have a duty to ensure that an injury isn’t aggravated by foregoing medical attention, and should contact a doctor or seek emergency healthcare as soon as possible after they are injured. More info here @ https://fordandlaurel.com
Potential Consequences for Failing to Mitigate Your Damages
If you fail to mitigate your damages, the judge in your case may decrease the amount of compensation you can recover from the defendant for your injuries. However, it’s important to note that failure to mitigate your damages is not a complete bar to recovery; rather, failure to mitigate your damages will only reduce the compensation you can recover from the defendant, as the court will adjust your award to reflect the portion of your injuries for which the defendant is responsible.
To illustrate the importance of mitigating damages in personal injury cases, consider this example of an injured car accident victim. In this example, a driver was on his way to play a friendly game of football with his friends when he was suddenly hit by a negligent driver and suffered a partially fractured collarbone as a result. Although the driver is in significant pain and has noticed intense swelling around his collarbone, he decides to play football with his friends anyway.
During the football game, the driver is tackled hard which caused his collarbone to completely break and become infected after it protruded through his skin. The injured driver then sued the negligent driver responsible for partially fracturing his collarbone for the full extent of his injuries.
However, the court will reduce the driver’s recovery to reflect the fact that the driver was only responsible for partially fracturing the driver’s collarbone, and the victim was responsible for aggravating his injuries so that he had a completely fractured collarbone that became infected.
Best Practices for Mitigating Your Damages
As you can see, mitigating the injuries you’ve suffered caused by someone else’s negligence or recklessness is extremely important not only to your health but to ensure that you are fully compensated for your injuries. To achieve these goals, you should be sure to do three things: seek medical attention as soon as possible, take care to stabilize and not aggravate your injuries, and contact the experienced personal injury attorney at Our Law Offices. Our attorneys have more than two decades of experience representing personal injury victims, and are available any time, day or night, to provide a free consultation regarding your injuries and what you might need to do to mitigate your damages. More information about Personal Injury Law here @ https://no1-lawyer.com/