Burden of Proof in Civil Claims in North Carolina (particularly auto accident claims)

Greetings, law fans! This little blog post is about the Burden of Proof in North Carolina civil claims (more particularly, auto injury claims).  This one is interesting because it has a few layers.

First, what does “burden of proof” mean in general?

Second, what is our burden of proof in NC personal injury law?

There is no Black’s Law Dictionary entry for Burden of Proof in general, so let me summarize…

Having the “burden of proof” means it is one parties’ responsibility to prove his case; it is not the other party’s responsibility to disprove the claimant’s case.

In NC injury law, as in most civil cases in America, the plaintiff (that’s the person who says he was injured by the other guy) has the burden of proof.  This means that means the plaintiff has to prove he was injured and is owed by the other guy.  The other guy (the defendant) has no burden of proof (in general), and if the plaintiff fails to meet his burden of proof, the defendant cannot be found liable.

Easy enough right? But what is our burden of proof in NC civil claims?  In other words, how  to we meet that burden of proving our case?   It is a standard known as “preponderance of evidence.”  Here’s a little snippet of the standard definition:

Black’s Law Dictionary: “as standard of proof in civil cases, is evidence which is of greater weight or more convincing than the evidence which is offered in opposition to it…”

In typical BLD fashion, that just makes it more confusing, right?

Let me break it down:

In order to prove your case, you must present evidence that beats any evidence against it.  By how much must it beat the other evidence?  Just a smidge!  The “greater weight” referred to in Black’s is just that…greater weight.  As long as you beat the other guy’s evidence by a smidge, a hair, a nose, or whatever you want to call it – as long as it is greater, you can win.  Later in BLD’s three paragraph definition, it states: “It is that degree of proof which is more probable than not.”  Now THAT makes it more clear!

EXAMPLE

• You have to prove your injury was caused by the defendant’s negligence
• Your doctor has to testify, generally, as to his opinion of that causation.
• In order for you to have a chance, the doc has to state that it is his opinion that it is “more likely than not” that your injury was caused by your accident.
• The doc DOES NOT have to say that it is was definitively caused by the accident

This issue hangs up a lot of people, because they see crime shows and they hear, “beyond a shadow of a doubt” as a measuring stick.  WE ONLY USE THAT STANDARD IN CRIMINAL CASES; WE DO NOT USE THAT STANDARD IN CIVIL CASES.

This is how OJ was able to be acquitted of the criminal charge of killing those folks, but found liable civilly for killing them; there was a different (lower) burden of proof for the civil claim which was more easily met.

Interesting stuff, huh?  Aren’t you glad you aren’t an attorney? Thanks for joining me again.  I hope you learned something useful.