When a person is injured through the negligence of someone else, the injured person often has an obligation to take reasonable steps to minimize the effects and loss related to his or her injuries. This obligation includes seeking other employment and/or retraining if the person's usual line of work is no longer feasible. A defendant in a personal injury case will often try to reduce the amount of damages the plaintiff may recover by showing that the plaintiff failed to take reasonable steps to reduce his or her loss following the injury.

The Injured Plaintiff's Obligation to Reduce Damages

Even a person who suffers personal injury through no fault of his or her own has an obligation to take reasonable steps to avoid further loss, and to minimize the consequences of the injury. The rule of "mitigation of damages" denies a personal injury plaintiff the right to recover that part of his or her damages which the court or a jury finds could reasonably have been avoided. A personal injury plaintiff's obligation is to act in a way that an ordinary, reasonable person would have in a similar situation. Further, an injured person must act in good faith and with due diligence in the exercise of ordinary care and reasonable judgment when selecting a doctor or treatment for his or her injuries and in seeking alternative employment.

Choosing Not to Have Surgery

For example, sometimes an injured person's doctor will recommend surgery as a method of treating an injury. In such a case, an injured person may choose not to have the surgery and no one can make him or her consent to it. However, an injured person may not recover damages for the consequences of an injury that could have been avoided or significantly lessened by surgery or other treatment. A plaintiff cannot claim damages for a permanent injury if the permanency of the injury could have been avoided by submitting to surgery or other treatment, when a reasonable person would have done so under the same circumstances.