What Is Considered To Be A Personal Injury?

A personal injury is any bodily injury that is caused by the negligence of another.

The most common example is an injury caused by an auto accident. Personal injuries may also be caused by a dog bite due to the dog owner’s failure to properly restrain the dog. The burn caused by the infamous “coffee spill” case is also a personal injury.

If a product malfunctions (ie airbag does not deploy when it should have) due to a design or manufacturing defect and it causes injury, a personal injury has occurred.

Personal injuries encompass both physical injuries and mental injuries. For example, if an auto accident was so traumatic that it caused you to attend counseling because of your fear of driving a vehicle again, your mental health trauma and counseling are part of your personal injury claim.

This may sound obvious but to have a personal injury claim, there must be loss, injury or damage. People sometimes tell me stories of finding foreign objects in their food; however, if the foreign object was not swallowed, then no injury occurred.

As frustrating as it may be, the extent of the loss or damage would be the price of the meal that was wasted.