Massachusetts Personal Injury and Accidents Overview

Massachusetts has laws in place that allow you to bring a civil lawsuit if someone hurts you. This body of law, referred to as personal injury or tort law, applies to a wide variety of cases. For example, in Massachusetts, injuries resulting from product liability, medical malpractice or car accidents- among other injuries- can all constitute personal injury cases.

Although there are a wide variety of different situations that can give rise to personal injury cases, in each case, you generally have to prove the defendant hurt you either on purpose or negligently. In Massachusetts, the rules for what constitutes negligence stipulate that the defendant must have had a duty to you and must have breached that duty. Massachusetts also applies a modified comparative negligence, or 50 percent rule, which stipulates that if you were 50 percent or more responsible for causing your own injury, you are barred from recovering.

In addition to proving the defendant acted intentionally or was negligent, you also must prove you suffered personal injury damages. The damages refer to the losses you suffered, or the amount your persona injury case is worth. In Massachusetts, personal injury damages are calculated by adding up the cost of your actual damages and including compensation for pain and suffering. However, for medical malpractice cases, there is a $500,000 limit for pain and suffering for medical malpractice. Punitive damages, another factor used to add to your damages, are appropriate only where the defendant's behavior was malicious and egregious.

If you have been the victim of a personal injury wish to sue to collect the damages due to you, it is important you understand you may not just file a lawsuit at any time in the state of Massachusetts. Instead, you must file your suit within the time period set by the Massachusetts statute of limitations. In Massachusetts, this statute of limitations gives you three years from the time of injury, or from the time you discover the injury in cases of medical malpractice where the injury may not be immediately known.

To ensure you comply with all of the different rules for filing your personal injury claim, you may wish to hire a Massachusetts personal injury attorney. While you can represent yourself or act as a pro se litigant, this is not generally advisable due to the complexity of filing and proving a lawsuit.