People have accidents every day. Whether you are involved in a vehicle accident, a slip-and-fall or an animal attack, accidents can happen anywhere. If you were injured, you may have to ask yourself if someone else was at fault. Is someone legally responsible for your injuries?

To file a personal injury lawsuit, another person or institution must break his or her duty of care and act negligently.

What Does Duty of Care Mean?

One of the most common examples of duty of care involves a grocery store. If you are in a grocery store, the owner of the store has a duty to you as a customer. You should be allowed to shop safely and without any risks to your health or body. On a winter day, you go to your local store, slip on ice outside on the walkway and suffer a serious injury. The business had a duty of care to you. By not applying deicer or warning customers of the ice, he or she breached that duty of care.

What Is Reasonable Care?

Now, just because someone else caused your injury does not necessarily mean that he or she was negligent or did not take reasonable care. A rule in negligence is that every person has to take reasonable care not to injure someone else. For instance, if you are playing basketball with a group of friends and the ball bounces out of bounds and hits someone, you may not be responsible for his or her injuries. The ball is a normal part of the game and the spectator should have known not to sit too close.

However, if you mean to throw the ball at another person or you throw a piece of equipment out of frustration and it hits a bystander, then you might be responsible for those injuries.

What Are Damages?

Damages are the medical costs, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages and other costs that you might incur after an injury. Since the injury was due to someone elseâ€™s negligence, he or she owes you compensatory damages. You may also request punitive damages which are extra damages meant to punish the defendant for egregious behavior.

It is normal to have questions about your case. Before you officially file a claim, you want to know as much as you can. You want to make sure that you have a case. For more answers to your questions about your injury claim, call a personal injury lawyer in Washington, DC, like from Cohen & Cohen, as soon as possible.