Liability
In the U.S., you will probably find that there are more personal lawsuits in comparison to many other countries. A lawsuit is a legal action where a group or individual sues (legally accuses) another group or individual for some type of mistreatment.
Usually, these cases are settled in a court of law. If the accuser(s) win the case, then the accused will have to pay a certain amount of money and/or property. Yet even though there are many lawsuits, and some of them are due to minor wrongs, you should not worry about being sued personally. Most of the time, people will sue a company or an organization rather than an individual.
To protect yourself, there are a couple of cases you should know about:
- If you will buy or rent a car, you must buy car insurance. Not only are you required by law to have car insurance, but also you will be thankful for it in case you get into a driving accident, because accidents are common and this is an area of significant liability.
- If you are renting an apartment, you might want to consider Renter‘s Insurance, which protects all your personal property (in case of an apartment fire, items in your apartment stolen by a thief, etc.).
- The last kind you want to be aware of is Medical Insurance that physicians need when caring for patients. If you are working in the U.S. in a nonclinical capacity (not working with patients), you do not have to get this type of insurance. And, if anything might happen in a research laboratory, the hospital usually will be responsible for any personal damages.