In order to win your case, you must prove that the facts support your case. Also, it is the plaintiff’s duty to prove his or her case, not the obligation of the defendant to disprove the plaintiff’s case. However, just how much proof do you have to have or put another way, how convincing do you have to do, in order to win? If a jury says that maybe they believe the plaintiff, is that enough to win? Do they have to be absolutely and totally convinced by the plaintiff in order to rule in his or her favor?
This question is really asking what is the plaintiff’s burden of proof in order to win. The burden of proof is the level of proof that the plaintiff must provide to the jury in order to win. U.S. law typically recognizes five levels or burdens of proof, which apply in various aspects of personal injury cases. These include, in increasing order from weakest to strongest: prima facie case; preponderance of the evidence; reasonable certainty; clear and convincing; and beyond a reasonable doubt.
A prima facie case begins with an explanation of prima facie evidence, which refers to presenting any evidence at all which is sufficient to suggest any possibility that something is true.
Basically, any evidence at all in favor of a position will provide prima facie evidence. In personal injury cases, this standard of proof is most commonly used with regard to motions to dismiss and motions for summary personal injury judgment. If a defendant makes a motion to dismiss or a motion for summary personal injury judgment, the plaintiff must show that he or she has a prima facie case this means that there is prima facie evidence of each element of the cause of action alleged by the plaintiff. If a plaintiff alleges any evidence to meet all required elements, a motion to dismiss should not be granted.
On other words, the plaintiff’s personal injury attorney must present a prima facie case at trial. After the plaintiff’s personal injury attorney has presented all of his or her evidence but before the defendant’s personal injury attorney begins his or her case the defendant’s personal injury attorney will make a motion for a directed verdict. This asks the personal injury judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that the plaintiff has presented all of his or her evidence and that there is not enough to cover all required elements or that the evidence was not strong enough that a reasonable jury could find in the plaintiff’s favor.
If there is enough evidence (and very little is required) that a reasonable jury could possibly find in favor of the plaintiff on each required element, summary personal injury judgment should not be granted. Preponderance of the evidence is the basic, default burden of proof in personal injury cases as well as most other civil (non-criminal) cases. The plaintiff must prove all elements and aspects of his or her case (except those which specify a higher standard, explained below) by a preponderance of the evidence.
A preponderance of the evidence means, in its most basic form, that something is more likely than not.
Other explanations which might help you understand this include: the evidence is more than 50 percent (even if ever so slightly over 50 percent) in favor of the plaintiff; or imagine that the proof is on an old fashioned scale if the proof tips the scale in the plaintiff’s direction at all, no matter how slightly, there is a preponderance of the evidence; or using the same analogy with the scale, imagine the scales are perfectly equal but then a feather lands on the plaintiff’s side of the scale that is all it takes to have a preponderance of the evidence.
For each of the elements of your causes of action, you will have to convince the jury by at least a preponderance of the evidence that they should believe your position.
The reasonable certainty burden of proof commonly applies to issues involving future damages. In other words, in a typical personal injury case you will have to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant is liable for the accident and that the medical bills, pain and other damages suffered from the time of the accident to the trial were caused by the accident.
However, if you wish to claim that you will suffer medical bills, pain, lost wages or other damages in the future beyond the date of the trial you will have to prove that it is reasonably certain that you will suffer those damages, not just that it is more likely than not preponderance of the evidence.
Reasonable certainty is more than a preponderance but less than beyond a reasonable doubt. Some injury lawyers claim that this burden of proof is identical to the clear and convincing burden but just has another name. I will not argue with this as the difference between the two, if any, is slight. Some jurisdictions (that is, states or specific courts) apply a clear and convincing burden of proof to certain issues.
It is hard to explain what clear and convincing really means. Suffice it to say that, like reasonable certainty, the proof must be more than a preponderance of the evidence, but less than beyond a reasonable doubt. This standard does not commonly apply in most personal injury case issues, although it does not apply in other civil law situations.
Some examples of situations in which the clear and convincing burden of proof is required: proving that a defendant committed fraud; in certain situations involving wills; in certain situations involving custody of children; in certain commitment proceedings; in certain situations involving defamation.
You have probably heard of the burden of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt. As you likely know, this is the burden of proof that must be met by a state or the federal government in order to convict someone of a crime. This standard applies only to criminal cases. It does not apply to any issues in civil cases that I am aware of except for one obscure issue. Suppose someone is tried for a crime which injures someone else. If the defendant is not convicted in the criminal trial, the injured victim can still sue the defendant for his or her injuries in a civil case. This is because the level of proof required for a criminal conviction is higher than for a civil case.
In other words, the level of proof might not be high enough to reach the level of beyond a reasonable doubt, but that does not mean that it is not high enough to reach the level of a preponderance of the evidence. So where a criminal case fails, a civil case might nevertheless succeed.
Along those same lines, in some jurisdictions, if a defendant is convicted of a crime, that conviction may in some circumstances be used against the defendant in a subsequently filed civil case. For example, if the defendant assaults the plaintiff and is convicted of the crime of assault, the plaintiff might then file a civil lawsuit in which it might be automatically be established, for purposes of the civil suit, that the defendant committed the assault. In the trial, the plaintiff will not have to prove the assault, only the damages that resulted. You cannot use a civil verdict to convict someone of a crime, only the converse.
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