There are two general categories of law: civil and criminal.
Criminal law deals with crime and punishment. Civil law, for the
purposes of this chapter, encompasses civil duties and their breach
and damages. Car accident cases generally involve “torts” (injuries).
To bring a civil claim in the courts, you need to have all four
parts of a case present: duty, breach, causation, and damages.

Duty

A civil duty is an obligation you owe to people in the
community. It can come from a contract, law or it can just be a
general civil obligation. When we drive cars, we are all charged
with the duty to drive with ordinary reasonable care. Basically, the
law says you have to be careful.

Breach

The second requirement is that the other person must
have failed to do his or her legal duty; he or she “breached” the
duty. An example of a breach of duty would be failing to yield, not
paying attention, speeding etc. Failing to do your duty of acting
carefully is generally called “negligence” as in, “she negligently
turned in front of the other car.” It just means the driver was not
being careful.

Causation

The third requirement is that the failure to do the
duty must cause something bad to happen. If you drive like a jerk
and swerve all over the road with no one around and nothing
happens, there was duty and breach, but it did not cause a crash.
Another example would be if you had cancer and were in a car
crash. If the crash did not change the cancer, you could not claim
the medical bills from cancer because they were not caused by the
other driver’s failure to drive carefully.

Damages

Finally, if the person breached their duty and it
caused something bad to happen, the court will look to see what
damages were caused.

The victim of a personal injury in Georgia has a legal
claim to compensation (money damages) for:
• Past and future medical expenses
• Past and future lost wages
• Pain and suffering
• Loss of enjoyment of life