so you had a duty and you breached it and it caused harm

did the harm cause any damages? how much money were the damages worth?

there are basic damages that get paid to replace property or pay medical bills

there are also nominal damages where you did something that was a tort but it

didn't cost very much so a number as just been assigned to it

usually this is just $1 plus if you act especially badly

particularly if you committed an intentional tort

the court might add punitive damages as well

where you pay extra money as a punishment

in a case where more than one person helped cause the damages

the court will help split the costs among them

based on how much harm each cost if it can

sometimes there is no way to tell so the court assigns

100% of the harm to each one

it doesn't mean the damages can be recovered more than once

just that the person who got hurt doesn't have to deal with trying to

collect from someone who doesn't have enough money

if you get sued for negligence there are ways for you to defend yourself

no, legal defenses... still no

one defense you can use is the person you hurt was also being negligent

in most places they'll still be able to sue you they'll just get less money

because their damages will be reduced by the percentage

that they are at fault for the accident

there are a few places though where you can't sue at all if you

did cause any portion of the harm

another defense is assumption of risk

this is where the court decides that you agreed to accept the risk of harm

from something dangerous

so once you agree to that you can't turn around and say you want to sue

under the famous "no backsies" doctrine of law

the difference between consent and assumption a brisk is that consent

is agreeing to let someone do harm to you

where assumption of risk is agreeing to do something like drag racing where harm might happen

plus you can assume risk without saying anything

just by knowingly doing the dangerous thing

while consent generally requires you to come out and say it

if you do assume the risk, you don't assume the risk of someone acting

with gross negligence which is basically someone acting recklessly

where negligence is making a mistake you should have avoided

recklessness is acting without thinking about the consequences at all

and putting others in great danger

the exact difference between negligence recklessness is hard to nail down

except in specific cases

a more technical defense is the statute of limitations

under the law you can only file a lawsuit within a certain amount

of time from the damage

the idea is that you don't want people bringing up cases from 50 years ago

you want things to go to court when they're fresh and all the witnesses

are around and then get them dealt with

the actual time period depends from place to place

similarly, different places have different rules about whether the period

counts from when you were injured

or when you discovered the injury

can be a big difference and

finally there are immunities or people you're just not allowed to sue

it used to be their husbands and wives couldn't sue each other

but that's not true anymore

to the great delight of marriage counselors everywhere

in many places children either aren't allowed to sue their parents before

they turn 18, the children not the parents, though

some places allow a child to sue their parents in certain situations

you can only sue the government if it has passed a law allowing you

to sue in specific circumstances

which is no doubt good news for the DMV

you are allowed to sue an employer for harm their employees cause though

as long as the harm is caused while the employee was doing their job

so it might really depend you can or can't sue in each case

and there you have it