Picture this: A person is walking down the sidewalk, enjoying a warm Spring day when out of nowhere a drunk driver hops the curb and strikes them over from behind. The pedestrian flies through the air, lands on his feet, and finds himself to be completely unharmed. A miracle occurred, as most people would have been permanently injured or killed.
On what grounds can that pedestrian, unharmed only by a stroke of luck, sue that driver, who clearly acted negligently and was at fault for what happened.
The answer is, none. There is no chance of a lawsuit here. The pedestrian does not have a case.
Why? Because you can’t sue for what could have happened, only what did happen. In this case, no one was injured.
Lawsuits aren’t some kind of bad luck lottery ticket, where people profit off of their own misfortune. No, personal injury lawsuits are about compensating people for their suffering and helping them adjust to life-changing events.
The three elements of a lawsuit
A lawsuit requires liability, causation, and damages. In this example, the driver was liable for what happened as he got behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated, which is a clear case of negligent behavior. He is also the one who caused the pedestrian to be struck, it wasn’t a faulty steering wheel or other mechanical problem. Both of those elements are required for a case, but so is damaging. In this example, there were no damages as no one was injured.
Sometimes people say things like “I could have been killed.” They rightly find themselves shocked by how terribly things could have gone because of someone else’s bad behavior. Those issues shouldn’t be ignored. There may be some kind of legal consequence that will fall on the person who caused that problem. However, a lawsuit is not the solution for things that could have happened but didn’t.
