In a personal injury case, proving that someone acted carelessly requires more than showing that an accident happened. The injured person generally must establish negligence, including that the defendant owed them a legal duty and failed to meet it.
That failure is known as a breach of duty. A breach occurs when someone’s conduct falls short of the level of care a reasonably careful person would have exercised under similar circumstances.
What Are the Elements of Negligence in Texas?
In Texas, establishing negligence requires four elements – a legal duty, a breach of that duty, causation, and damages. These concepts are all closely connected.
Duty
First, the defendant must have owed the injured person a legal duty. A duty is essentially a legal obligation to act (or refrain from acting) in a particular way.
The exact duty depends on the relationship between the parties and the circumstances. Drivers, for example, have duties concerning the safe operation of vehicles. Property owners have duties toward people entering their property. Without an applicable legal duty, there generally cannot be a negligence claim.
Breach
Next comes breach. The injured person must establish that the defendant failed to satisfy the applicable legal duty.
Suppose a motorist is driving behind you. Merely driving behind another vehicle is not negligent. But following only a few feet behind at highway speed may be unreasonable because the driver does not have enough room to react if traffic suddenly stops.
The circumstances can turn ordinary conduct into potentially negligent conduct.
Causation
Proving that someone acted negligently does not automatically make them responsible for every injury that follows.
The breach must have caused the claimed harm. In Texas, this generally means the defendant’s conduct must have played a substantial role in causing the injury and the harm would not have occurred without it. The type of harm must also have been reasonably foreseeable.
Imagine that a store leaves water on the floor. If you slip on that water and break your wrist, the connection may be relatively direct. However, if the store’s negligence had nothing to do with your injury, proving the dangerous condition alone would not establish the necessary causation.
Damages
Finally, there must be legally recognized harm.
An accident can result in both economic and non-economic damages. Injury victims may recover damages such as medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and other losses.
What Are Some Examples of Breach of Duty?
Breach looks different depending on the accident. In a motor vehicle case, it might involve:
- Speeding
- Texting while driving
- Running a red light
- Following too closely
- Making an unsafe lane change
- Driving while impaired
- Failing to yield
A commercial trucking case might involve additional conduct, such as inadequate vehicle maintenance or unsafe practices by a motor carrier.
A premises liability case can be different. Depending on the legal standard, the dispute might concern a dangerous property condition, whether the property owner knew about the hazard, or whether reasonable steps were taken to warn or protect the injured person.
That is why “breach of duty” does not have one universal definition that applies identically to each accident.
How Do You Prove Breach of Duty?
You prove breach of duty with evidence. Sometimes that evidence is obvious. Other cases require much more investigation.
Useful evidence may include:
- Accident or police reports
- Photographs
- Surveillance recordings
- Dashcam footage
- Vehicle damage
- Electronic vehicle data
- Cell phone records when relevant
- Maintenance records
- Company policies
- Inspection records
- Safety documents
- Expert witness testimony
No single piece of evidence is required to establish a breach of duty. Instead, the available evidence should help show what a reasonable person or business would have done under the circumstances and how the defendant’s conduct fell short of that standard. In more complex cases, experts may help explain industry practices, safety standards, or other technical issues that are not obvious to the average person.
Contact the de la Garza Law Group for a Free Consultation With a Houston Personal Injury Lawyer
Breach of duty is the point where a negligence case moves from saying an accident happened to explaining why someone should be legally responsible for it.
The evidence must show more than an injury. It must establish an applicable duty, conduct that fell short of that duty, a causal connection between the breach and the injury, and damages.
If another person’s carelessness caused your injuries, you don’t have to face the aftermath alone. Contact The de la Garza Law Group at (713) 784-1010 for a free consultation. We will investigate your accident and determine whether the evidence supports a negligence claim under Texas law. Our team can fight for the compensation you truly deserve after an accident.
