by Contributor
(Feb. 4, 2021) — Personal injury compensation claims are among the most popular legal cases in the world. Thousands of personal injury cases are settled in the USA every year. Bust just how did this kind of compensation become part of everyday life? Here is a very brief guide to the catalytic social changes that set the stage for the legal culture we live with today.
Compensation At Sea
Before the advent of personal injury compensation in any strict legal form, some predecessors and analogs did exist. One fascinating predecessor to modern personal injury compensation was the system of injury payments organized on 18th Century pirate vessels.
Being a pirate was dangerous work, and plenty of swashbuckling seafarers were struck down with injuries that prevented them from carrying out tasks. Most pirate ships had a code of compensation for crewmembers. If a pirate lost a leg in the line of his nefarious duty, he would be paid a prearranged sum depending on the severity of the injury. These compensatory sums were quite large for the time, with the loss of a leg resulting in a payment of 500 pieces of eight in some cases.
The Industrial Revolution
It was the industrial revolution that bought personal injury claims into the courts. The use of machines in factories meant that workers were often left injured by primitive spinning devices and steam components. Because the machines were owned by the employer, workers sued them for compensation in civil court. This was when the concept of employers’ legal liability for personal harm became codified in many nations. Some scholars argue that it was the proliferation of dangerous technology that caused the development of compensatory structures for American citizens.
The industrial revolution also led people to work further from home with (and for) people they did not know intimately. This meant that litigation was often their only reasonable option for acquiring compensation – beforehand, this would have been dealt with amongst peers and family members.
The Automobile
The single greatest technological driver of personal injury claims is the automobile. Cars might be getting safer, but that doesn’t mean that people don’t get injured driving them. In fact, around 4 million Americans suffer injuries from car accidents every year. Medical care can be very expensive in America, so litigation is often one of the only ways to avoid debt after a car accident.
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Insurance
The mass subscription to insurance services in the USA has been a big driver of personal injury claims. When a person is injured, the spoils of their suing will likely come from the insurance payouts of the party responsible for the injury. Employers and vehicle drivers almost always have insurance policies that cover payouts for injury. This means that a great deal of cases can be settled without going to court. This, in turn, makes it far more tempting for an injured person to begin legal proceedings, as a good lawyer can offer them a very likely positive outcome.