Automobile Accidents
The car accident is the personal injury lawyer’s bread and butter. I, for one, prefer this type of case to any other. As far as the law is concerned, there are variations throughout the states as to the law of car accidents, but many of the core concepts are essentially the same. Here, I will outline the basic types of legal systems used by the states with regard to car accidents.
These laws can be broadly grouped into two categories, traditional tort liability law systems and various versions of “nofault” systems.
Traditional tort liability law is still used by many states, although modifications seem to be increasing every year. Even in states with nofault laws, if injuries are serious enough, the case may fall out of the no-fault system and back into a traditional tort liability law system. I realize this may be confusing, but it should make more sense as you read along.
Traditional tort liability is based upon fault. That is all well and good, but what does it mean. Simply put, it means that you cannot successfully sue another person for causing your injuries unless they were at fault for causing the injuries, at least to some degree.
How do you know if someone is at fault for an car accident? Fault in personal injury cases (including car accidents, as well as other types of personal injury cases) is based on either negligent or intentional acts. Someone is “at fault” only if the accident was caused by an act of negligence or an intentional wrongful act.
In the next several pages, we’ll consider negligent acts since car accidents are usually not intentional. Negligence is an action that breaches a duty toward others. Although there are many specific duties imposed on peoples’ behavior, it is also generally required that people act in a reasonably prudent manner in their actions toward others. Thus, negligence in its most general form is the failure to act in a reasonably prudent manner toward others.
There are certain elements that must be met in order to prove a cause of action based on negligence and have a successful personal injury case. The elements of a negligence cause of action are: duty, breach, causation and damages. Let’s look at each of these separately.
Duty
First, the person who injured you must have had some duty under the law to act or not act in a certain way. This duty can generally be based on one of two types of law common law or statutory law. Let us begin with an explanation of common law.
Some duties are created by courts through statements published in cases. This is called “case law.” Judges issue written opinions which are published in books called “reporters” and later used again in future cases.
Essentially, this collection of case law makes up the “common law.” There are many types of duties created by case law which are thus part of the “common law.” For example, in most states the common law provides that people must use “reasonably prudent care under the circumstances” with regard to all of their behavior towards others. An example of this would be that everyone has a duty to use reasonable care to avoid bumping into others on a public staircase. If you don’t use reasonable care and you bump into someone, you have violated that duty to use reasonable care.
The other type of law upon which duties can be based is statutory law. Statutory law is law based on statutes, which are laws enacted by legislatures, whether a state legislative body or the United States Congress. Statutes are then published, often in the form of a Code, such as “The Montana Code” or “The United States Code.”
In most states, statutory laws can form the basis of a personal injury lawsuit if the duty outlined in the statute is breached. For example, a statute might require a person to have functioning headlights in order to drive a vehicle at night.
If a person drives at night with no headlights, she has breached the duty provided in the statute; and, if this causes an accident, then there is a potential personal injury case based on this breach of duty. Of course, using headlights at night might be both a common law duty and a statutory duty.
Breach
The second element of a negligence claim is breach of duty. In order to have a successful personal injury lawsuit based upon negligence, the defendant must have had some duty toward you and he or she must also have breached or failed to follow, that duty. For example, people generally have the duty to drive their vehicles in such a manner as to not run stop signs. If a person breaches this duty by running a stop sign and hits you, then you have the first two elements of a negligence claim: duty and breach.
Fact or Myth: The Rear Driver Is Always at Fault
Going back as far as my teenage years, I have often heard people say that, when there is a rear-end collision, the driver in the rear is always at fault. With no exceptions. But is this true? The best answer is that it is mostly, but not entirely, true. In some states by statute and in some by case law, there is a presumption that the rear driver in a rear-end collision is at fault. That means that when there is a rear end collision, the law assumes that the rear driver is at fault and that is usually a reasonable assumption.
So, You’ve Been in an Accident…
However, the law will allow the rear driver the opportunity to overcome the assumption by trying to prove that because of some unusual or extenuating circumstance the rear driver is not at fault or at least not entirely at fault.
For example, the rear driver might argue that the collision is partly the fault of the front driver because the brake lights on the front driver’s car were not working.
Also, there have been cases where it was proven that the front driver slammed on his or her brakes with the intention of trying to cause a rear-end collision. In those cases, the rear driver might not be at fault and the front driver might be charged with criminal violations as well.
The point is that although they are unusual there are situations in which a rear-end collision could be the fault of the front driver; and the rear driver will have the opportunity to try to prove this. Also keep in mind that not every state’s law makes the assumption that the rear driver is at fault. In that case, the plaintiff would have to prove fault in the traditional manner although in a rear-end collision case that is usually not very difficult.
The third element of a negligence claim is causation. In order to recover damages for injuries caused by the negligence of another person, the breach of duty (the first two elements) must have been the cause of your injuries.
For example, if the defendant ran a stop sign and t-boned your car and you suffered whiplash because of the accident, then there is causation between the breached duty and your injury and you can recover damages for the whiplash.
However, if you develop leg pain because you fell earlier in the day and the pain has nothing to do with the accident, then you cannot blame the car accident for the leg pain, as there is no causation no connection between the breached duty and your injury.
It is important to note that not only must the defendant’s behavior be the cause of the injury, it must also be the proximate cause of the injury.
Proximate cause is a complicated subject that even law students and some injury lawyers struggle to fully understand. It is enough for our purposes that you have a basic idea of what it means.
Above, I gave some examples of where the breach of a duty clearly did or did not cause an injury. But sometimes causation is questionable. In other words, the actions of another may have played a part in the injury but there is not a crystal clear link. For example, imagine that your car is rear ended but you are not injured. Then, just as the accident appears to be over, a big truck hits your car and injures you. Is the first driver’s negligence the proximate cause of your injuries? The truck? Both? In other words, is there a close enough connection to warrant liability? This is essentially asking whether there was proximate cause, it is one of the questions that the jury must answer.
The elements of a negligence claim presented above are the elements of a claim for any type of negligence tort, not just car accidents. Thus, the same elements would apply to prove negligence in a slip and fall case or a product liability case…and so on.