Hello, I’m Roger Ghai, and many times I get questions from clients as to how to prove, legally, a case for their injuries in a court of law. So, first of all, law requires that we prove what we call causing fact or factual causation. And to give you an example of this, let’s take a real routine rear-end collision. So you could argue in court that, but for the fact of the defendant following too closely, they violated the following too closely law, 40-6-49. And had they not violated it, the rear end collision would not have occurred.
Then you have a second prong of the legal case, which you have to prove what we call in the law as proximate cause. Proximate cause is simply defined as whether it is foreseeable that the injury would have occurred. So in this case, had the person not been following you too closely, the accident would not have occurred, and foreseeable that because they were following you too closely that an accident was going to occur.
So, it’s not hard, many times, in a routine traffic automobile case to prove what we call the liability. So, you could have a rear-end collision. You could have somebody failing to stop at a stop sign, but had they stopped at the stop sign, the accident wouldn’t have happened. It was foreseeable that not stopping at the stop sign was going to lead to an accident. It could have been the left turn case, the same principles apply.
So if you have questions about whether you’re going to be able to prove your case in a court of law, or what is required to prove your case in a court of law, please call my office at 770-792-1000.