Motor Vehicle Litigation
A lawsuit is necessary when liability is contested. The defendant has the right to respond to the Complaint.
New York follows pure comparative fault rules and, should a jury find that you are responsible for causing a crash, your damages award will be reduced by the percentage of negligence. This rule does not apply to the owners of vehicles that are which are rented out or leased to minors.
Duty of Care
In a lawsuit for negligence the plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant owed them a duty to exercise reasonable care. This duty is owed to everyone, but people who operate a vehicle owe an even greater obligation to other people in their field. This includes ensuring that they don't cause
motor vehicle accidents.
Courtrooms compare an individual's actions with what a normal person would do under the same circumstances to determine reasonable standards of care. This is why expert witnesses are frequently required in cases of medical malpractice. Experts with a superior understanding of a certain field may be held to a greater standard of medical care.
When someone breaches their duty of care, it may cause harm to the victim and/or their property. The victim has to prove that the defendant's breach of duty caused the injury and damages that they suffered. Causation is a crucial element of any negligence claim. It requires proof of both the proximate and actual causes of the damages and injuries.
For example, if someone runs a red light and is stopped, they will be hit by a vehicle. If their vehicle is damaged, they'll be accountable for repairs. The real cause of an accident could be a brick cut that causes an infection.
Breach of Duty
A defendant's breach of duty is the second factor of negligence that must be proved in order to receive compensation in a personal injury claim. A breach of duty occurs when the actions of the party at fault do not match what an average person would do in similar circumstances.
For instance, a doctor has several professional obligations to his patients, arising from state law and licensing boards. Drivers are bound to care for other drivers and pedestrians, as well as to obey traffic laws. If a driver violates this obligation and results in an accident is responsible for the victim's injuries.
Lawyers can rely on the "reasonable person" standard to establish the existence of the duty of care and then demonstrate that the defendant did not comply with the standard in his actions. The jury will decide if the defendant complied with or did not meet the standard.
The plaintiff must also prove that the defendant's negligence was the main cause of the plaintiff's injuries. This is sometimes more difficult to prove than the existence of a duty and breach. A defendant may have run through a red light but that's not the cause of your bicycle accident. Causation is often contested in crash cases by defendants.
Causation
In motor vehicle-related cases, the plaintiff must establish a causal link between the breach of the defendant and their injuries. For instance, if the plaintiff sustained neck injuries as a result of an accident that involved rear-ends the lawyer could argue that the collision was the cause of the injury. Other factors that are necessary to produce the collision, like being in a stationary car, are not culpable, and do not affect the jury's decision of the liability.
It is possible to establish a causal link between an act of negligence and the psychological issues of the plaintiff. The reality that the plaintiff experienced a an uneasy childhood, a bad relationship with their parents, abused drugs and alcohol or experienced prior unemployment could have a influence on the severity the psychological problems he or suffers from following a crash, but the courts typically look at these factors as an element of the background conditions that led to the accident from which the plaintiff's injury was triggered, not as a separate reason for the injuries.
If you have been in an accident that is serious to your vehicle It is imperative to speak with a seasoned attorney. The attorneys at Arnold & Clifford, LLP have years of experience representing clients in personal injury cases, business and commercial litigation and
motor vehicle accident attorney vehicle accident cases. Our lawyers have developed working relationships with independent doctors in different specialties as well as expert witnesses in computer simulations and accident reconstruction.
Damages
The damages that a plaintiff can recover in motor vehicle litigation include both economic and non-economic damages. The first category of damages is all monetary costs which can easily be summed up and summed up into an overall amount, including medical expenses as well as lost wages, repairs to property, and even future financial loss, for instance loss of earning capacity.
New York law also recognizes the right to recover non-economic damages, such as the suffering of others and the loss of enjoyment of life, which cannot be reduced to a monetary amount. These damages must be proved with a large amount of evidence, such as depositions of family members and friends of the plaintiff medical records, depositions, or other expert witness testimony.
In the event of multiple defendants, courts often use comparative fault rules to determine the amount of total damages that should be divided between them. The jury must determine the degree of fault each defendant was at fault for the accident and to then divide the total damages awarded by the percentage of blame. New York law however, does not allow this. 1602 does not exempt vehicle owners from the rule of comparative negligence in cases where injuries are sustained by drivers of trucks or cars. The resulting analysis of whether the presumption of permissive usage applies is complex and usually only a convincing evidence that the owner explicitly denied permission to operate the car will be sufficient to overcome it.