Personal Injury

Introduction to Personal Injury

Personal Injury, in law, hurt or damage done to a person, or an invasion of personal rights.” (1)

Main Elements in the United States Law

Personal Injury Defined

The American legal Ecyclopedia (including defining Personal Injury) offers a fundamental understanding of this topic, providing a fresh approach to the trends. The main entry thoroughly describes its application.

Common Torts and Defenses

The American legal Ecyclopedia offers a fundamental understanding of this topic, providing a fresh approach to the trends. The main entry thoroughly describes its application.

Simple Personal Injuries, by Bentham

Text of one of the sections, titled “Of Simple Personal Injuries” in the “Specimen of a Penal Code”, edited from the French of Dumont, and the original MSS. and printed works of Bentham, of the “Essay on the Promulgation of Laws, and the Reasons Thereof; with Specimen of a Penal Code”, of the classical book “An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation”, by Jeremy Bentham:

Simple (see Introduction to Morals and Legislation, chap. xviii. [Division of Offences] Simple Corporal Injuries, in order to distinguish them from Irreparable Corporal Injuries, and from Mental Injuries, etc) Corporal Injury is either positive or negative. There is positive simple corporal injury, when, without lawful cause (refer to the general head, “Grounds of Justification”), an individual has caused, [2] or contributed (refer to the general title of “Co-delinquents”) to cause, to another, a corporal pain, either light or weighty (very thing which takes place against the will of the party injured, even the slightest touch: hence the mischief of this offence may vary, from the slightest uneasiness to the most painful tortures), which is not followed by any ulterior corporal evil (If any ulterior mischief happen, the offence no longer belongs to this head; it becomes an irreparable corporal injury, or an imprisonment, etc). There is simple corporal injury (refer to the general head of “Negative offences”), when, without lawful cause, an individual, seeing another in danger, abstains from helping him [3], and the evil happens in consequence.

Resources

Notes and References

• Information about Personal Injury in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
• Caused. It is of no consequence, neither in what manner, nor by what means, the mischief has been done: whether the person have been beaten or wounded; whether air, water, light, or fire, have been employed; whether some hideous and disagreeable object have been presented to the sight, to the touch, or to the tase; whether, by force or otherwise, a mischievous drug have been administered; whether a dog, or some other animal, have been employed to gratify the offender’s malice, or an innocent person; whether it have been done by the sufferer himself, as by inducing him to walk into a snare or into a ditch; whether the necessary means of relief have been removed from his reach, the bread from the hungry man, the medicine from the sick: these means, and all others which have mischief for their object, are included in the definition of a simple personal injury.
• Abstains from helping him. Every man is bound to assist those who have need of assistance, if he can do it without exposing himself to sensible inconvenience. This obligation is stronger, in proportion as the danger is the greater for the one, and the trouble of preserving him the less for the other. Such would be the case of a man sleeping near the fire, and an individual seeing the clothes of the first catch fire, and doing nothing towards extinguishing them: the crime would be greater if he refrained from acting not simply from idleness, but from malice or some pecuniary interest.

Guide to Personal Injury