Archive for December, 2010

Victims in a personal injury accident case have a duty to mitigate damages, but what does that exactly mean? San Antonio injury attorney Michael Grossman provides the following short article to define a plaintiff’s duty to mitigate damages in order to help you understand your own responsibilities should you be seeking compensation from a negligent party for a sustained injury.

Duty to mitigate damages means that a plaintiff bears the responsibility for ensuring that their sustained injury does not worsen over time due to a lack of proper medical care. In other words, a plaintiff that has been injured as a result of another person’s or entity’s negligence must take reasonable steps towards ensuring that their injury does not become more severe with time. For example, if a victim suffers an injury to their hand and decides to forgo both immediate medical attention and any medical care for weeks on end and the hand becomes infected resulting in an amputation, the negligent party that caused the initial injury would not be held liable for that amputation since the plaintiff failed to mitigate their damages by choosing not to seek medical attention when it was necessary for their continued health that they do so.

It should be noted, however, that only a reasonable amount of care has to be shown by a plaintiff in mitigating their damages. In the example cited above, it would not be reasonable for an injured victim to refrain from all activity by living in a sterilized room until the injury has healed.

Plaintiffs that do not properly mitigate their damages can stand to lose a portion, or even all, of their possible compensation from the negligent party, depending on the specifics of the case and the extent of the injury. That is why it is often quite important in a personal injury accident case that the plaintiff seeks proper medical attention so that their injuries do not worsen over time.