No Rule Set on Stone

by: bhoottied Austin

The simple fact in life remains, that is, everything in life is changing and the only the thing that seems to be constant is change, well not quite, include the interpretation of laws, particularly laws on personal injuries. They say laws are appreciated in a different light and point of view dependent on the facts and circumstances in a particular case. True, laws are no good without any issue for it to be utilized. This is where law in its pure form can be made in as complex a state as it could possibly be. Although there is a system of law known as jurisprudence, which is the adoption of a court’s previous ruling if the facts concerning the previous litigation actually relates to the same factual background as what is talked about in the case at the hand, there is no hard and fast rule that the same ruling would actually be adopted.

A case in point would be in a personal injury case. One case held as a rule, that in an accident accosted in an intersection, the person who has the right of way in consonance with the signal of the traffic light at the time of the impact has the ample right which must be upheld. In another case, meanwhile, it was ruled that despite the right of way of defendant, which was determined at the time of impact on the basis of the signal of the traffic light, he was still held as guilty for contributory negligence. He was asked to pay damages because he has the last clear chance to avoid the accident, which he failed to do. In this case, it was held that although defendant has indeed the clear right of way, he saw the plaintiff way before the accident happened, and if only he exercised proper prudence under the circumstances then the accident could have been avoided.

This and an array of other similar accidents, particularly those concerning vehicular mishaps are manifestations of how the law on transportation is viewed as dynamic. Meaning that notwithstanding what your personality is in an accident, if you think you were deprived of your rights then go ahead and fight for it, who knows you could be the next to debunk another landmark jurisprudence.

original author: Atty. Gabriel Cosh