Businesses have a duty of care that includes protecting their clients from financial and physical harm. When a business breaches this duty of care, it can be held liable for the injuries or financial damages these actions create. In Nevada, individuals must show that actual damages resulted. It is not enough to claim that a breach of duty of care could have caused damages.
Duty of Care
Businesses have many duties to their customers, suppliers, and employees. These duties of care include properly recording, labeling, and storing inventory. They include providing adequate training to employees on how to use equipment, process customer information, manufacture products, etc. These duties also include repairing property damage or defective equipment so that it doesn’t pose a health and safety hazard to employees or customers.
Establishing Negligence
Establishing that a business breached the duty of care requires proving that the business acted negligently thus causing a negative outcome. This means establishing that negligent actions such as improperly maintaining equipment, failing to repair known property damage, failing to clean up spills or debris, failing to ensure employees were trained to use equipment, etc. caused harm to the individual.
Negligence can be established through eyewitness statements, photographs/video, medical records, property records, billing receipts, etc. This information can be used to show that the actions of the business were intentionally negligent and caused real physical or financial harm to the plaintiff.
Reason and Reasonable Action
Businesses are required to take reasonable care of their customers, employees, suppliers, etc. This means that they must take reasonable measures as defined by their profession and the type of service or product they provide. Thus, the duty of care and the standards a business is required to adhere to can vary widely. Typically, those businesses that require higher levels of skills or specialized training are held to a higher standard in this regard. When establishing negligence, it is necessary to show that the business’ actions deviated significantly from accepted norms, practices, or policies within the industry.
A Las Vegas personal injury lawyer can pursue claims against businesses that breach their duty of care. Claims can be filed for professional liability, premises liability, or product liability depending on the circumstances. The statutes of limitations on these types of cases depend upon the factors involved and the harm they caused so it is important not to delay pursuit of claims following an injury.
