DETERMINING LIABILITY IN AUTO ACCIDENT CASES

Car Accident Attorneys Honolulu

The success of virtually any personal injury case rises and falls on the plaintiff’s ability to identify and prove that the defendant is liable – that is, financially responsible – for his or her injuries. The car accident attorneys at the Honolulu law firm of Leavitt Yamane & Soldner have decades of collective experience in successfully demonstrating the liability of negligent drivers for the injuries sustained by victims.  If you have been injured or have suffered the wrongful death of a family member in a car accident, you need to entrust your case to lawyers with the resources, skills, and knowledge to present the strongest case possible on your behalf.  You need the law firm of Leavitt Yamane & Soldner in your corner.
 

NEGLIGENCE AND LIABILITY

A reasonable person is expected to behave in such a manner that his or her actions do not put others at risk of harm.  When a person fails to behave in this manner and his or her actions result in injury to or the death of another person, he or she can be said to have acted negligently.  This negligence on the part of the defendant must be proven before he or she can be held liable for the resulting losses and expenses suffered by the injured party.  In this sense, the concepts of negligence and liability are intertwined in most personal injury cases.

In car accident cases, our attorneys in Honolulu must be able to demonstrate that:

• The driver who caused the accident owed the injured party a “duty of care”; that is, that he or she was obligated to drive safely and to be mindful of the safety of his or her fellow drivers
• The driver failed to fulfill this duty of care and, in doing so, behaved negligently
• This act of negligence resulted in harm to the injured party
• The injuries sustained by the injured party resulted in losses and expenses that would not otherwise have been incurred

On the surface, many cases involving car accidents appear to be relatively simple; however, the establishment of negligence is almost always a complex matter requiring careful analysis of the facts and detailed investigation of the accident.  Our car accident attorneys in Honolulu have successfully handled even the most complex auto accident cases over the years and would be pleased to put their experience and knowledge to work for you.
 

DAMAGES IN AUTO ACCIDENT CASES

Depending on the extent of your injury and whether you share some degree of fault for the car accident, you may be entitled to compensation for medical bills, rehabilitation expenses, pain and suffering, lost wages, and other demonstrable losses and expenses.  If you have lost a loved one, you may be further entitled to compensation for funeral costs, future lost wages, and other losses that can reasonably be projected into the future.

If you believe that you were partly responsible for the accident in which you were injured, you may still be entitled to recover partial compensation.  Hawaii has adopted the legal doctrine of comparative negligence.  This means that the amount of compensation to which you are entitled will be reduced according to your degree of fault.  Therefore, if you were found to be 30 percent responsible for the accident, you would be entitled to recover 70 percent of your total losses and expenses.