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Personal injury lawyers have earned themselves a renowned reputation as some of the highest-paid legal professionals, yet this wasn’t always the case.
Law has existed in some form since the dawn of civilization, but modern personal injury claims did not emerge until the 20th century. Two key court decisions helped establish our current understandings of negligence and proximate cause.
Personal injury law was part of an evolving legal structure; we may never know who first conceptualized or created it; but what can be said is that its first practitioners assisted individuals to pursue compensation claims against negligence in specific and limited circumstances.
Anglo-Saxon law codes offer us a valuable source for understanding changing societal ideals. They explicitly condemn interpersonal violence and damage to the head or face; yet on the other hand they assert rulers’ rights to inflict similar injuries as punishment for crimes such as theft and treason.
Michel Foucault’s influential Discipline and Punish popularised the notion that medieval societies were places of unregulated, emotional-driven violence. Yet these laws contain examples involving facial disfigurement that contradict this narrative; even if they did not specifically compensate for it, their existence indicates there was need for legal protections similar to what exists today.
The Industrial Revolution marks a period in modern history when societies transitioned away from agrarian, hand-crafted economies towards factories and machine manufacturing. Historian Arnold Toynbee described this period of change as taking place gradually over time; teachers may use primary sources in this collection to facilitate discussions of how its effects were felt by people living at that time.
Personal injury lawsuits were relatively rare prior to the Industrial Revolution as accidents among strangers were unlikely within tight-knit agricultural communities. With industrialization’s arrival and subsequent explosion of factory jobs, severe workplace injuries became all-too-common due to machinery defects, long hours, and lack of regulation resulting in thousands of annual fatalities and making personal injury law increasingly relevant.
The Industrial Revolution brought with it many important inventions, including the steam engine, cotton gin, sewing machine and first combustible engine and incandescent light bulb. Furthermore, this period saw expansion of railroads, formation of worker unions as well as legal reforms such as rejection of fellow servant rule and gradual establishment of employer liability.
While various forms of law and lawyers have existed for millennia, personal injury law only really came to prominence during the late 1970s. That was when personal injury attorneys first began advertising themselves and even appearing on television.
Two key legal decisions from this period laid the groundwork for personal injury law as we know it today. Helen Palsgraf was injured while trying to board a train in 1928 when two guards thought she was falling and tried to assist. Instead, their efforts caused her to drop a package of fireworks which later exploded and caused injury – this case established the legal concept of proximate cause.
Donoghue v Stevenson (1932), was another landmark decision, when a woman was awarded compensation after drinking ginger beer from a bottle that contained dead snails and then becoming sick as a result. This case established that manufacturers have an obligation to ensure their products are safe for consumers.
Personal Injury Law is an ever-evolving field, reflecting our ever-evolving society. Lawyers have played an essential role in shaping this change – advocating on behalf of victims while helping shape liability and compensation laws.
Early 20th-century court cases provided two foundational concepts which still shape personal injury law today. Palsgraf v Long Island Railroad Co, filed against an injured passenger trying to board a train, established the legal concept of proximate cause while Donoghue v Stevenson (known commonly as Paisley Snail or “snail in the bottle”) established negligence as key component of personal injury law.
Though legal systems have existed for millennia, personal injury lawyers began advertising their services during the 1970s. Jacoby and Meyers became the pioneers in advertising their practice outside of yellow pages advertisements in 1979 – marking an historic step in this industry’s development.