Delaware Injuries Dictionary

Legal and insurance terms explained plainly

Not a finding that someone automatically lied or lost the case, an adverse inference is a permitted conclusion that a judge or jury may draw when missing evidence would likely...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-25

asbestosis

What does it mean if someone is diagnosed with asbestosis? It means they have a chronic lung disease caused by breathing in asbestos fibers, usually over a long period at work...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

at-will employment

What surprises most people is what this does not mean: it does not give an employer a free pass to fire someone for any reason at all. In Delaware, "at-will" usually means a...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-21

authentication

How do you prove that a photo, text message, medical record, or video is actually what you say it is? That is authentication: showing that a piece of evidence is genuine and...

DICTIONARY 2026-04-03

best evidence rule

People often confuse the best evidence rule with hearsay, but they solve different problems. Hearsay is about whether an out-of-court statement can be used to prove what it...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-31

business records exception

Like a timeclock printout or a hospital chart made during a busy shift, some records are trusted because they were created routinely, close to the event, and not just for a...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-29

cancer cluster

A cancer cluster is a greater-than-expected number of cancer cases occurring within a group of people, a geographic area, or a period of time. The phrase often comes up when...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

demonstrative evidence

Not every visual aid shown in a case is the original proof of what happened. A chart, timeline, model, animation, or marked-up photograph may be used to explain testimony or...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-24

dose-response relationship

You just got a letter that says the experts are disputing the "dose-response relationship" in your chemical exposure case. That phrase means the connection between how much of...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-22

excited utterance

Miss this rule, and a key statement made right after a crash, fall, or other emergency may get brushed off as hearsay when it could have helped prove what happened. An excited...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-28

foundation

You just got a letter that says your photos, medical records, or witness statement may be challenged for "lack of foundation." That means the other side is saying there is not...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-30

hearsay

An out-of-court statement offered to prove that what it says is true is usually hearsay, and courts generally do not admit it unless an exception applies. That rule surprises...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-24

latency period

Why can someone be exposed to a harmful substance and not get sick until much later? The answer is the latency period: the span of time between an exposure, event, or harmful...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

prejudicial effect

People often mix up prejudicial effect with probative value. Probative value is how much a piece of evidence actually helps prove a fact. Prejudicial effect is the risk that...

DICTIONARY 2026-04-02

present sense impression

A case can fall apart when the clearest statement about what happened gets brushed aside as hearsay. A present sense impression is a statement made while someone is seeing,...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-28

preservation letter

Like hitting "save" before a phone dies, a preservation letter is a fast written demand telling someone not to delete, destroy, repair, overwrite, or throw away evidence. In...

DICTIONARY 2026-04-03

probative value

Think of a blurry phone photo after a crash: it may be dramatic, but if it does not actually help answer what happened, who caused it, or how badly someone was hurt, it has...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-29

retaliatory discharge

$10,000 in lost wages can pile up fast after an injury, and insurers or defense lawyers may try to treat a firing like it was just a routine job decision with nothing to do...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-22

sovereign immunity

The worst mistake people make is assuming a government claim works like a regular car wreck claim. It doesn't. Think of it like walking up to a locked service door instead of...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-21

spoliation of evidence

The loss, destruction, alteration, or failure to preserve evidence that could matter in a legal claim. "Evidence" can mean physical items, photos, video, electronic data,...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-31