This is a question people ask themselves only when something terrible has happened to themselves or a loved one, and someone else seems to be at fault. So it’s never an easy circumstance to think about. It’s especially tough to consider a lawsuit in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic event, when emotions are swirling and lives are disoriented and disrupted. There are good reasons and bad reasons to bring a lawsuit against someone else – whether a corporation, government agency or individual.
Getting Heard when You Have Been Injured
One good reason to at least start the lawsuit process is to find out exactly what happened and why.
Compensation – money – is a basic goal of any lawsuit when a life-changing injury has occurred. The law recognizes that an innocent victim of someone else’s wrongdoing has a legal right to payment of medical bills, lost income, lost quality of life and other harms that the victim has experienced and is likely to continue to experience. The core idea of compensation – which literally means rebalancing – under tort law is that the victim has a right to be put as close to where the victim was pre-injury as money possibly can do. Why? Simply because the injury should never have happened if the person or company that caused it had been careful. The law also recognizes that civil lawsuits can help make the world a safer place, by showing people that when they’re not careful, they will have to pay.
