Personal injury law takes into account something called vicarious liability, where an employer or corporation is held responsible for the negligent actions of its employees. While this is an effective means of recovering compensation for injured parties, the world is a complex machine and this form of lability may fail when it comes to capturing the whole story. For instance, what if your injury wasn’t caused by the negligent actions of just one employee, but due to the toxic institutional, documented culture of the corporation they represent?

In some instances, whole systems which are comprised of procedures, managerial decisions, policies that place profit or reputation above safety may cause more harm than just one single negligent act perpetrated by their employee. At McCready Law, we understand that negligence may be a complex affair and that it is important to go beyond simple vicarious liability in order to hold corporations accountable for their institutional negligence. In this article, we shall explore this aspect of negligence in order to provide you with information and strategic actions we can employ to hold these corporations or institutions responsible for their negligence – read on to find out more.

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Are you looking for the best injury attorney? Please call us NOW at (314) 481-63338 to learn more about your legal options for justice and compensation. The experienced injury lawyers at McCready Law have collectively garnered over 90 years of stellar legal experience where we’ve helped tens of thousands of injured Americans across the country and from all socioeconomic backgrounds receive compensation after falling victim to the negligent actions of other individuals or large corporations. Thanks to our dedication and passion, we have been able to recover over $260 million for our clients to date, and this number keeps on growing with each passing year, with some of the settlements or judgments we’ve won for our clients rising to the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in the case of loss of life and permanent disability, millions of dollars.

Certain factors can be attributed to our success as a law firm for instance – we personally handle all claims and do not shunt them over to paralegals or legal assistants which is a common practice in most law firms that usually jeopardizes claims due to the lack of experience and competence displayed by these legal professions.

In addition, we engage top experts in the medical, forensic science, engineering and other fields in order to build an impenetrable case replete with evidence demonstrating negligence and will spare no expense to do so. We run a bilingual firm (hablamos Español), have nationwide reach thanks to our trusted and vast network of referral attorneys and law firms, and we take on all cases on contingency fee basis, which simply means that there are ZERO UPFRONT FEES for the duration of the processing of your claim, as we only levy our fees at the end of the suit, and only if we’ve recovered compensation on your behalf. If you or a loved one suffered injury due to someone else’s negligence, don’t hesitate: call us NOW at (314) 481-63338 to learn more about your legal options for justice and compensation – our intake team is standing by.

Differentiating Between Vicarious Liability and Institutional Negligence

In order to have a clear understanding of institutional negligence, we must first demystify vicarious liability. This form of liability states that an employer is liable for the negligent actions of their employee as long as said actions occurred within the scope of their employment.

On the other hand, institutional negligence asserts that the institution itself, be it a school district, hospital or corporate headquarters were negligent in its own duties whereby its policies, supervision, training or overall culture fostered a dangerous environment which made injury a certainty. However, this is not to say that the employer is liable for the negligence perpetrated by its employee, but that it is liable for its own mistake when it came to creating and maintaining an injurious and dangerous environment.

Let’s take a look at the tell-tale signs of a toxic institutional culture:

1. Understaffing and overworking existing employees which then leads to exhausted workers who are more likely to make a critical cognitive error, thereby leading to innocent individuals such as yourself getting injured. This will require that we investigate their staffing data, shift schedules and any internal complaints in order to demonstrate that this wasn’t an isolated incident but an anticipated consequence of cost-cutting policies.
2. Suppression or ignoring of internal complaints where even though there exists a formal process for workers to report any managerial oversight or harassment, the administration has a culture of either ignoring or downplaying these reports so they can maintain a spotless reputation.
3. Failure to adequately train and supervise where the corporation provides the bare minimum training to its workers in order to save money and time. However, should these workers cause an injury due to not knowing the safety features of the machinery they were trained on, the corporation may try to blame the worker. However, an investigation into their certification processes, training manuals and supervision protocols may prove that their insufficient training methodologies were the proximate cause of your injuries.

Proving Institutional Negligence in an Injury Lawsuit

Proving institutional negligence is not an easy affair. This is because one needs to invest time, resources and strategic oversight to unearth evidence alluding to the same. This can be proven by taking a look at internal memos and emails, employee handbooks and policy manuals, testimony from whistleblowers who may be current or former employees who can corroborate the toxic institutional culture, and so on. Despite the amount of work when it comes to establishing institutional negligence, these cases usually lead to a more favorable outcome as they attract higher settlements; in addition, since exposing this information within a lawsuit may lead to reputational ruin, the institution may be more inclined or motivated to settle quickly and for a higher amount instead of duking it out in a trial.

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If you or a loved one got injured by the employee of a retail giant, prestigious college or school, hospital or any other institution and suspect that their actions were a sign of institutional negligence, please give us a call NOW at (314) 481-63338 to learn more about your legal options for justice and compensation wherever you are in the country. Your first consultation is 100% FREE, and there is no legal obligation. Thanks for choosing us, and we look forward to helping you.