Personal Injury and Insurance Law

Personal injury law involves situations where one person is harmed by the actions of another, and the injured individual wants to recover monetary damages.

Like other areas, there tend to be subspecialties, which include:

traditional personal injury practice focusing on situations such as traffic accidents, slip and fall cases, and the like;
medical malpractice which ranges from misdiagnosis to medication, treatment, and surgical errors, and other areas of health law;
products liability that covers the claims when a person is injured by an allegedly defective product; and
mass torts, which are lawsuits that occur where many people are allegedly harmed by the same set of circumstances or problem, such as environmental contamination.

Personal injury lawyers commonly work on one side of civil litigation — either in filing claims or lawsuits for compensation for injured people or defending the individuals or businesses who are accused of injuring those individuals. One unique aspect of this area is how the lawyers are paid. Usually, plaintiffs’ lawyers are paid via contingency fee, which is typically 25-30% of any favorable verdict. On the other side, defense lawyers are paid on an hourly basis for their time, but typically must account for the tasks worked for on behalf of the client in either fifteen or six-minute increments.

Relatedly, insurance law can cover a wide array of legal issues, including compensating individuals harmed in accidents or protecting individuals or businesses covered by insurance from losses. Individuals and businesses usually own many different types of insurance policies. For example, individuals commonly carry car insurance, home or renter’s insurance, or insurance to protect assets. Likewise, businesses may carry personal injury insurance, malpractice insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, and insurance for industry risks.

Many traditional personal injury or insurance lawyers work in a small law firm or on their own as solo practitioners. Lawyers representing companies and focusing on malpractice defense, products liability or mass torts tend to work in mid- to large law firms. In the public sector, personal injury lawyers may be able to work for any number of state or federal government agencies or attorneys general offices in litigation matters.

Courses

Courses designated as "primary" are foundational, while those listed as "secondary" contain relevant and related content. "Co-curricular" courses are credit-bearing extra-curricular activities, while "experiential" courses are practice-based offerings. Please keep in mind that the focus of any course will vary depending on the instructor.

Primary Courses

131: Torts 4 credits PRIMARY

This course examines the circumstances in which courts will shift loss from those who have suffered harm to their person, property, reputation, or psyche to those who have been involved in causing that harm. It is limited to civil (non-criminal) cases that are not typically based on mutual promises made by parties to a contract. The primary focus is on accidental injuries that cause physical harm where negligence or fault is the predominant liability standard, although intentional torts such as assault and battery as well as strict liability (no-fault) may be covered. Justifications for the law imposing liability, both philosophic and economic, are also considered. Procedural aspects, including the respective roles of judge and jury and difficulties of proof, which are central to tort law in the U.S., are raised continuously throughout the semester.

473: What's it Worth? Estimating and Settling Personal Injury Claims 1 or 2 credits PRIMARY

This course will cover the basics of how the value of a personal injury claim is estimated by forensic economists, complications and variations in such estimates, taking depositions and discovery of all relevant parties with respect to the extent of the damages, constructing a life care or vocational plan (if needed) with the help of vocational and social service experts, dealing with insurance companies and opposing counsel, defending depositions, opposing bad faith claims and preparing for trial. The course may also cover special issues that may arise in the case of foreign plaintiffs in the US where damages may be in foreign currency. The overriding purpose of the course is to teach the students how to settle such cases, short of trial.

509: Insurance Law 2 or 3 credits PRIMARY

In the words of one author, "Insurance ideas and practices define central privileges and responsibilities within a society. In that sense, our insurance arrangements form a material constitution, one that operates through routine, mundane transactions that nevertheless define the contours of individual and social responsibility. For that reason, studying who is eligible to receive what insurance benefits, and who pays for them, is as good a guide to the social compact as any combination of Supreme Court opinions.” Accordingly, this course will cover an array of insurance law issues, including contract law foundations, insurance regulation, first-party insurance (including life, property, and disability), and liability insurance (including its implication on tort law), always keeping in mind the broader societal implications of insurance as a risk- and cost-spreading device.

Secondary Courses

396: Biosciences, Causation, and Tort Law 1 credit SECONDARY

This course builds on tort law and involves its application in a specialized area that focuses on the harm suffered. Rather than traumatic injuries, toxic torts are about diseases suffered as a result of the wrongful conduct of another. Of course, automobiles, baseball bats, and widgets don't cause disease. Instead, diseases (for our purposes) are caused by drugs, chemicals, minerals (asbestos is, after all, a type of mineral), radiation, cigarette smoke, and similar substances. Those substances, the diseases they cause and the lawsuits they spawn frame this course. Among the many special problems that exist in this area of tort law is causation, and that will be the focus of the course: addressing the theory of factual causation and understanding the different types of scientific evidence brought to bear on the issue of causation.

465: Compliance and Risk Management 2 credits SECONDARY

Explores a range of topics within the corporate compliance framework. The goal is to provide a focus on the critical components of corporations that rely on compliance and discuss how that translates into opportunities for lawyers. Specifically, the course will focus on the governance structure of compliance and risk management as well as best practices. This will include how programs are operated, monitored, and tested while leveraging case studies and guest speakers. Federal rules will also be utilized to understand the practical application of compliance within organizations so as to enable students to understand the role compliance plays in the overall success and sustainability of an organization.

503: Labor Law 2 or 3 credits SECONDARY

A survey of the rights and duties of employers, unions, and employees under the National Labor Relations Act.

525: Health Care Law and Policy 2 or 3 credits SECONDARY

This course introduces students to the structure, financing, and regulation of the health care system and proposals for its reform. Legal topics include Medicare, medical staff disputes, health care antitrust, tax exemption, corporate organization, and insurance regulation.

536: Land Use Regulation and Planning 2 or 3 credits SECONDARY

A study of the public regulation of land use and its alternatives. The primary focus is on the scope of the police power in the zoning process.

555: Workers' Compensation 2 credits SECONDARY

Covers the essential aspects of state-mandated, no-fault, programs that compensate employees injured or killed at work. The focus is on determining under what circumstances an employer is liable for the injury or disease suffered by an employee, the employment relationship, what constitutes a compensable injury and occupational disease, and the exclusivity of the workers' compensation remedy in place of the traditional tort remedy. The course will highlight the difference between the tort system that focuses on fault as a basis for liability and workers' compensation that focuses on the connection to work as the basis of liability.

636: Construction Law 2 credits SECONDARY

This two-credit course builds on traditional doctrinal courses such as contracts and torts and tracks the use of these doctrines by attorneys who advise and advocate for parties involved in construction projects. It incorporates practical problems that require students to learn and exercise “lawyering” skills such as (a) contract drafting, (b) contract review, (c) client counseling about the management of risk, (d) claim identification, and (e) claim preparation. The substantive topics to be covered include competitive bidding, project design, contract documents, project scheduling, payment issues, construction changes, damages, workplace safety issues, insurance, mechanic’s liens, suretyship, and alternative dispute resolution.

652: Business and Commercial Torts 2 or 3 credits SECONDARY

This course covers torts that businesses suffer and in which other commercial entities are the defendants. Tort law’s primary focus is on protecting against personal injury and property damage. But businesses can’t suffer personal injury and frequently the harm that they do suffer is pure economic loss. This occurs due to fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and interference with the contract. At the same time, tort law has been reluctant to interfere when the parties are in a contractual relationship and the risk of loss has been (or could have been) addressed by agreement of the parties in their contract. Thus, when the only harm caused is economic loss, such as lost profits, identity theft, a loss of an inheritance, the benefit of the bargain in a contract, an opportunity to start a new business or a product that does not perform as it should have, tort law has been very restrictive about providing relief, leaving most of such harm to contract law or uncompensated. This course will cover the areas in which tort law does provide protection and for pure economic loss and the areas in which it has deferred to contract.

657: Biotechnology Law and Policy 2 credits SECONDARY

Biotechnology is a major growth industry and both large and boutique law firms are establishing biotech or “life sciences” practice groups. This course surveys a range of legal topics in this field, such as FDA regulation of drugs and devices, regulation of medical research, products liability, insurance coverage of pharmaceuticals, intellectual property, and genetics.

665: Toxic Torts 3 credits SECONDARY

This course examines the theories of liability and issues of proof surrounding toxic torts, which include drugs, industrial chemicals, and hazardous waste, as well as the remedial challenges they pose. A significant component of the class is coverage of the sciences that bear on causation: epidemiology, toxicology, and genetics, which are central to practice in this area in which factual causation is almost always in dispute.

Experiential Courses

345: Semester in Practice 10 or 11 credits EXPERIENTIAL

This is the field placement component of a full term externship program and is paired with the Externship Lecture course. Total credits between Semester in Practice and Externship Lecture will total 13. The number of credit hours awarded to an individual student will determine the hours of work required at the field placement and meet or exceed the ABA standards. In accordance with ABA guidelines, students work at a placement under a supervising attorney. C-LAW 300.

358: Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic - Seminar 2 credits EXPERIENTIAL

This experiential clinic course focuses on the attainment of fundamental lawyering skills through direct client representation and advocacy, with a particular emphasis on problem solving and legal remedies to address health-harming legal needs. Through collaboration with healthcare providers, students will identify legal issues that negatively contribute to the health of low-income patient-clients and develop a comprehensive, interprofessional strategy to overcome barriers to health justice. Seminar topics educate students about fundamental lawyering skills and substantive law essential for the cases students will work on over the course of their time in the clinic.

676: Summer Externship 4 credits EXPERIENTIAL

This course is currently available only in the summer. The director of the externship designates one or more cities in North and South Carolina, usually including Charlotte, NC, and offers the students externships in a designated practice area. The practice areas vary from summer to summer. Students meet weekly with the director to integrate and apply the doctrinal insights received elsewhere in the law school curriculum and in the subject matter of the field placements.

Faculty

The following faculty are knowledgeable about the topic and may be a useful resource for you.

Jonathan Cardi

Professor of Law

Allyson E. Gold

Associate Dean for Experiential Learning

Mark Hall

Fred D. and Elizabeth L Turnage Professor of Law

Andrew R. Klein

Dean

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