Articles Tagged with personal injury lawyer

Less than two years ago, the Indiana Supreme Court issued two injury law opinions that reshaped the foreseeability criteria courts consider when weighing premises liability lawsuits.

Premises liability is predicated on the legal theory that businesses and/ or property owners have a duty of care to shield invited customers or guests from an unreasonable risk of harm. The element of a “duty of care” is the foundation for any lawsuit alleging negligence, as is the breach of duty and the fact that the breach caused the injury. In premises liability cases in particular, foreseeability of danger is what establishes the duty.

The new test model was outlined in a pair of 2016 rulings – Goodwin v. Yeakle’s Sports Bar & Grills, Inc. and Rogers v. Martin. It’s particularly relevant to those cases stemming from a third-party criminal attack on someone else’s property. In both cases, the state high court established that courts must decide as a matter of law (by the judge) rather than as a matter of fact (by the jury) whether the injury in question was foreseeable by analyzing a broad type of harm and a broad type of plaintiff. This differs substantially from the previous approach, which relied on fact-sensitive inquiries. Those two cases have been cited as precedent-setting in a number of recent Indiana premises liability cases. Continue reading

A default judgment in an Indiana personal injury lawsuit can occur when there is a failure to take action by one of the involved parties. In most cases, it’s a judgment in favor of the plaintiff (the injured person) when the defendant (the tortfeasor/alleged wrongdoer) has failed to respond to a summons or appear in court. 

This was exactly what occurred in a recent Gary injury lawsuit considered by the Indiana Court of Appeals. The case involved a grocery store injury at the store involving a defective shopping cart.

The appellate court records don’t spell out many details from the original complaint, except that the plaintiff suffered injuries as a result of using a malfunctioning shopping cart at the store. She filed a personal injury lawsuit against the store, alleging they were liable for her injuries on the basis of premises liability.

Continue reading

Contact Information