Chicago personal injury lawyers, Articles

Negligence Per Se

Negligence per se is the legal doctrine that makes an act negligent because it violates a statute or regulations. In order to prove that something is negligence per se, the plaintiff must show:

1. The defendant violated the statute
2. The statute is a safety statute
3. The act caused the kind of harm the statute was designed to prevent
4. The plaintiff was in the zone of risk

In some jurisdictions, negligence per se creates merely a presumption of negligence and is not enough for a plaintiff to be awarded damages.

While proving that a person violated a statute, it is frequently much more difficult to show that a statute was a safety statute. In some instances, a legislative body will write out the purpose of a law and it will state explicitly that it is designed to protect people and ensure the safety of citizens. Unfortunately, the majority of the time the body that enacted the statute won't do this. This makes it much more difficult to determine what the purpose of the law is.

Another problem is determining if the act was the cause of harm that the statute was designed to prevent. In some instances, a person will be harmed and the harm will be the result of the violation of a safety statute but the injury won’t be the type that is addressed by the statute.

A typical example of negligence per se involves a housing contractor violating a building code. If the contractor violated the building code and the house then collapses and hurts someone in the process, the contractor could be liable for negligence. The violation of the building code establishes negligence per se as long as the building code was for safety and not environmental reasons. If the contractor's breach was of a safety statute and the code was the cause of the injury.

Contact a Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer

If you have been hurt in an accident as a result of someone's negligent conduct, contact the Chicago personal injury lawyers of Friedman & Bonebrake at 312-466-8200 to discuss your legal options.