Serious Injuries and Wrongful Death – need for awareness of the law before filing a lawsuit
There are many occasions when serious injuries and death occur to persons because of either an accident or negligence in operating machinery. These injuries may be of various types including brain injury or spinal cord injury which may lead to death. The compensations for all these deaths are significant and are sufficient as per the law to cover the person’s families adequately till such time as some other alternate source of income is found.
Burns and electrocutions may also cause deaths. Amongst the causes of wrongful death is death due to wrongful confinement or delay in getting a doctor to attend to the patient. Serious spinal cord injury or a brain injury is the direct result of an impact or a collision of a serious nature with the body of the person involved. A head injury in most case result in a brain injury which incapacitates the person for the rest of his or her life. Spinal cord injury may arise out of falling from a height and with no protective guard or cover to shield the fall. Burns are common and occur at places where electricity supply is involved. Burns may also be caused by direct exposure to handling of hazardous chemicals. Electrocutions are common in the case of overhead high-tension electricity transporting wires getting snapped from the grid and lying in an open field without the knowledge of the people working in the surrounding areas.
Although all these are covered under the term, ‘accidents’ their consequences may vary as does their compensations. Not all accidents coming under these causes are because of negligence. Acts outside human control like storms and floods, can cause an electric wire to snap and bring down an entire grid tower to the ground. By the time the electricity supply can be switched off to the affected tower, it may be late as people running for shelter may step on the live wires and are electrocuted. Thus, any serious injury resulting in death cannot be necessarily the blame of the provider of the utility services or the persons under whose instructions the jobs were being done. For example, while riding a motorcycle, willful disregard to speed limits may cause an accident and it is not the liability of the motor cycle manufacturer to compensate the victim in the event of death due to a serious brain injury.
Although the law does provide for adequate compensation coverage in the event of accidents resulting in burns or electrocutions, if there is an instance of a wrongful act by a party which caused the death. Not every act of nature which results in death or serious injury is going to be compensated. Contact an attorney to determine if there is potential liability in your situation deserving of compensation by the courts.
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