Can You Sue A Person Who Beat You Up?

If you were innocently visiting a park one day and someone you knew came up behind you and started physically attacking you, there are legal steps you can take to hold this person accountable for what they did. In fact, you can press charges against the person to hold him or her responsible criminally, and you can also file a personal injury lawsuit against the person to hold him or her financially responsible for what happened. Here are several things you should know about situations like this.

This Type of Attack Is Considered Assault and Battery

Assault and battery have two different meanings in legal terms, yet they are often combined because it is rare to have one without the other. The term "assault" refers to a person wanting to scare or harm another person. For an action to be considered an assault, the person causing the harm must have an intent to harm the other person. Assault can even include situations where a person does not even lay a hand on the other person, but instead causes fear in the innocent person.

The term "battery" is a term that refers to the actual harm done to a person through actions by the offender. This can occur through hitting, slapping, scratching, punching, or even touching another person. As you can see, these terms are very closely related, and that is why they are usually combined in legal cases.

If your situation involved a person coming up to you and hurting you in some way, with the intent to cause harm, you may have an assault and battery case on your hands. You will definitely be able to press charges against the offender in this case, but you may also be able to file a personal injury lawsuit against the person.

You Can Sue the Person If You Were Injured from the Incident

To seek compensation through a lawsuit against the offender, there are a few elements that must be present. The first element is harm. The incident that occurred must have left you with some type of physical harm. Another necessary element is proof of that harm. You must be able to show proof that the incident left you injured in some way, and the best way to prove this is with documentation from your doctor. If you don't go to the doctor, you won't have any documentation to prove that the incident caused physical injuries to you.

Secondly, you must be able to prove that the person intentionally caused you harm or failed to take precautions to avoid causing you harm.

You Can Seek Damages for Physical Harm and Other Things

If you meet the requirements listed above for a personal injury case, you should talk to a lawyer about your case. There will be a lot of different things you could seek damages for, including the following:

1. Physical harm damages – The first is your cost for the medical services you received from the injuries you incurred from the accident. If you will have ongoing medical bills, you can ask for damages to cover those too.
2. Loss of work – If the incident left you unable to work or if you had to take time off of work for doctor visits, you can request to be compensated for this.
3. Emotional damages – You can also sue for a variety of emotional damages the incident caused you. This includes pain and suffering, humiliation, and mental distress.

It is against the law to attack a person, and you have the right to take legal action if this happened to you. To learn more about your rights, you should contact an attorney at firms like Wolfe  Jones Wolfe Hancock Daniel & South LLC.

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