finally you have damages
so you had a duty and you breached it and it caused harm
did the harm cause any damages? how much money were the damages worth?
there are basic damages that get paid to replace property or pay medical bills
there are also nominal damages where you did something that was a tort but it
didn't cost very much so a number as just been assigned to it
usually this is just $1 plus if you act especially badly
particularly if you committed an intentional tort
the court might add punitive damages as well
where you pay extra money as a punishment
in a case where more than one person helped cause the damages
the court will help split the costs among them
based on how much harm each cost if it can
sometimes there is no way to tell so the court assigns
100% of the harm to each one
it doesn't mean the damages can be recovered more than once
just that the person who got hurt doesn't have to deal with trying to
collect from someone who doesn't have enough money
if you get sued for negligence there are ways for you to defend yourself
no, legal defenses... still no
one defense you can use is the person you hurt was also being negligent
in most places they'll still be able to sue you they'll just get less money
because their damages will be reduced by the percentage
that they are at fault for the accident
there are a few places though where you can't sue at all if you
did cause any portion of the harm
another defense is assumption of risk
this is where the court decides that you agreed to accept the risk of harm
from something dangerous
so once you agree to that you can't turn around and say you want to sue
under the famous "no backsies" doctrine of law
the difference between consent and assumption a brisk is that consent
is agreeing to let someone do harm to you
where assumption of risk is agreeing to do something like drag racing where harm might happen
plus you can assume risk without saying anything
just by knowingly doing the dangerous thing
while consent generally requires you to come out and say it
if you do assume the risk, you don't assume the risk of someone acting
with gross negligence which is basically someone acting recklessly
where negligence is making a mistake you should have avoided
recklessness is acting without thinking about the consequences at all
and putting others in great danger
the exact difference between negligence recklessness is hard to nail down
except in specific cases
a more technical defense is the statute of limitations
under the law you can only file a lawsuit within a certain amount
of time from the damage
the idea is that you don't want people bringing up cases from 50 years ago
you want things to go to court when they're fresh and all the witnesses
are around and then get them dealt with
the actual time period depends from place to place
similarly, different places have different rules about whether the period
counts from when you were injured
or when you discovered the injury
can be a big difference and
finally there are immunities or people you're just not allowed to sue
it used to be their husbands and wives couldn't sue each other
but that's not true anymore
to the great delight of marriage counselors everywhere
in many places children either aren't allowed to sue their parents before
they turn 18, the children not the parents, though
some places allow a child to sue their parents in certain situations
you can only sue the government if it has passed a law allowing you
to sue in specific circumstances
which is no doubt good news for the DMV
you are allowed to sue an employer for harm their employees cause though
as long as the harm is caused while the employee was doing their job
so it might really depend you can or can't sue in each case
and there you have it