Motor Vehicle Litigation

A lawsuit is required when liability is contested. The Defendant has the right to respond to the Complaint.

New York has a pure comparative negligence rule. This means that if a jury finds that you were at fault for an accident and you are found to be at fault, your damages will be reduced according to your percentage of blame. There is an exception to this rule: CPLR SS 1602 excludes owners of vehicles hired or leased by minors.

Duty of Care

In a lawsuit for negligence the plaintiff must show that the defendant owed them a duty to act with reasonable care. This duty is due to everyone, but people who operate vehicles owe an even higher duty to other drivers in their field. This includes ensuring that they don't cause car accidents.

Courtrooms assess an individual's actions with what a normal person would do under similar circumstances to determine what constitutes an acceptable standard of care. In the event of medical malpractice experts are often required. Experts with a superior understanding of particular fields may be held to a greater standard of treatment.

A breach of a person's duty of care may cause harm to a victim or their property. The victim must show that the defendant's infringement of duty caused the damage and injury they suffered. Causation is a key element of any negligence claim. It involves proving the proximate and real causes of the injury and damages.

If a driver is caught running the stop sign, they are likely to be hit by a car. If their car is damaged they will be responsible for the repairs. But the actual cause of the accident could be a cut or bricks that later develop into a dangerous infection.

Breach of Duty

The second element of negligence is the breach of duty by an individual defendant. This must be proven for compensation in a personal injury case. A breach of duty is when the actions taken by the at-fault person fall short of what a normal person would do in similar circumstances.

A doctor, for instance, has a variety of professional obligations to his patients, arising from laws of the state and licensing boards. Motorists have a duty of care to other drivers and pedestrians to drive safely and observe traffic laws. If a driver violates this obligation of care and causes an accident, he is accountable for the injury suffered by the victim.

A lawyer may use the "reasonable person" standard to prove the existence of the duty of care, and then demonstrate that the defendant failed to meet the standard in his actions. The jury will decide if the defendant fulfilled or did not meet the standard.

The plaintiff must also prove that the defendant's negligence was the direct cause of the plaintiff's injuries. This is sometimes more difficult to prove than the existence of a duty or breach. For example the defendant could have been a motorist who ran a red light, however, the act was not the primary cause of your bicycle crash. Because of this, causation is often challenged by defendants in collision cases.

Causation

In motor vehicle cases, the plaintiff must establish a causal connection between the defendant's breach of duty and the injuries. For instance, if a plaintiff suffered neck injuries as a result of a rear-end collision and their lawyer will argue that the collision was the cause of the injury. Other factors that are essential to cause the collision, such as being in a stationary vehicle, are not considered to be culpable and therefore do not affect the jury's determination of liability.

It can be difficult to establish a causal relationship between an act of negligence and the psychological issues of the plaintiff. It could be because the plaintiff has a troubled past, has a bad relationship with their parents, or has abused drugs or alcohol.

If you have been in a serious motor vehicle accident it is crucial to speak with a seasoned attorney. The lawyers at Arnold & Clifford, LLP, have extensive experience in representing clients in personal injury as well as commercial and business litigation, and motor vehicle accident attorneys vehicle accident cases. Our lawyers have developed working relationships with independent medical professionals in a range of specialties including expert witnesses in accident reconstruction and computer simulations, and with private investigators.

Damages

In motor vehicle accident law firm vehicle litigation, a plaintiff could recover both economic and noneconomic damages. The first type of damages covers all financial costs that can easily be summed up and then calculated into a total, for example, medical treatment as well as lost wages, repairs to property, and even future financial loss, like diminished earning capacity.

New York law also recognizes the right to recover non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment, which cannot be reduced to a monetary amount. The damages must be proven through extensive evidence such as depositions of family members or friends of the plaintiff or medical records, or other expert witness testimony.

In the event of multiple defendants, courts will typically apply the rules of comparative fault to determine the amount of damages that must be divided between them. The jury has to determine the percentage of blame each defendant is accountable for the incident and then divide the total amount of damages awarded by the percentage. However, New York law 1602 disqualifies vehicle owners from the rule of comparative negligence in cases where injuries are suffered by drivers of cars or trucks. The subsequent analysis of whether the presumption of permissiveness applies is not straightforward, and typically only a clear evidence that the owner explicitly refused permission to operate the vehicle will overcome it.