What Are Personal Injuries?

The term “personal injury” refers broadly to damage or harm suffered by someone’s body or mind. It can also apply to suffering that an injured person incurs, often resulting from a preventable accident. People often think of car accidents when they hear “personal injury.” While motor vehicle accidents are a common type of personal injury litigation, personal injuries can also occur because of another person’s negligence or misconduct.

Personal injuries typically fall into the following categories:

• Motor vehicle accidents: This includes accidents involving cars, trucks, motorcycles, boats or aircraft, as well as pedestrians who are injured by a motor vehicle.
• Negligence: Negligence occurs when someone who had a duty of care failed to uphold that duty. This category includes medical malpractice, nursing home/elder abuse, dog bites, premises liability (such as “slip and fall” injuries), food poisoning, defective products and more.
• Wrongful death: A wrongful death case can result from either an intentional or a negligent act. In these cases, the victim's surviving family members have the right to take legal action to seek damages from the party or parties responsible for the death.