Idaho Law Blog
One of the most confusing areas of personal injury law is the duty to mitigate that lies with every injured person. This blog will attempt to explain this responsibility.
Many believe that if they didn’t cause the accident and they can prove negligence by another, they will recover so long as they sustained injuries in the accident. However, this is not altogether true. In Idaho, every plaintiff has the duty to mitigate damages. This means that one must take reasonable steps to minimize the financial harm caused by the accident.
The purpose of this “mitigation” rule is to prevent a plaintiff from simply sitting back and doing nothing while damages grow to the defendant’s harm. In cases where needless damages have accrued, the court can limit or completely disallow such recovery. One way of thinking about this is that the Plaintiff can only recover “reasonable” damages. Here are some reasonable steps to limit or mitigate damages.
- Let’s assume you have a job when you are injured. However, after the injury you can no longer perform the duties that your first job required. The rule of mitigation of damages may require you to obtain another job that you can perform even if you don’t make as much money in order to reduce the amount of damages owed by defendant.
- You may have to undergo physical therapy by prescription of your doctor. You should go to all of the appointments faithfully as required. This will aid your recovery in addition to mitigating your damages. It mitigates your damages by speeding your healing from the injury.
- Another example is where you get injured, but you don’t go to the doctor. This allows the injury to get worse and increases the cost to the defendant when you finally do get treatment. The court may reduce damages due to your failure to get treatment promptly.
These and other concepts are difficult without the help of a competent lawyer. An Idaho personal injury lawyer is not just advisory, it is essential.