negligence tort, proximiate cause

[Handlobraesing]

Who's legal liability is what, when your action indirectly cause another a loss?

I read on wikipedia that if a construction worker leaves a manhole open and a careless driver bumps a pedestrian and the pedestrian is seriously injured from the fall into the manhole, the driver + construction worker are equally liable for the result.

A long time ago, someone made an illegal turn in front of me and I slammed on my brakes. I didn't hit her minivan, but I got rear-ended. No damage worth mentioning, so it was done, but the insurer of the driver that ran into me said it would be their insured's fault 100%.

So, I watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftuu97E9Pjs

Guy takes his shopping cart to his car, then while he's trying to load his car, the shopping cart rolls back headed straight towards a car with someone sitting in it. The guy sitting in it backs up to avoid getting hit by the cart and smash up another car.

What's the civil liability of the guy with the cart?

 

[thiswayup]

Who's legal liability is what, when your action indirectly cause another a loss?

I read on wikipedia that if a construction worker leaves a manhole open and a careless driver bumps a pedestrian and the pedestrian is seriously injured from the fall into the manhole, the driver + construction worker are equally liable for the result.

Equal fault, equal liability.

A long time ago, someone made an illegal turn in front of me and I slammed on my brakes. I didn't hit her minivan, but I got rear-ended. No damage worth mentioning, so it was done, but the insurer of the driver that ran into me said it would be their insured's fault 100%.

An insurance company isn't a court. For small cases they'll use set procedures, agreed between all of them, to keep their costs down. The end result averages out in the end, and they avoid an enormous cost in legal fees.

So, I watched this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftuu97E9Pjs

Guy takes his shopping cart to his car, then while he's trying to load his car, the shopping cart rolls back headed straight towards a car with someone sitting in it. The guy sitting in it backs up to avoid getting hit by the cart and smash up another car.

What's the civil liability of the guy with the cart?

It depends. The key question is, did he take reasonable care with the cart? If the guy parked on an obviously sloping area on the street and shoved a heavily loaded trolley there, he's culpable. Otoh, if it's the store's parking and the design of the parking area was wrong, or if cart design was wrong, they are culpable.

 

[LuxLuthor]

What's the civil liability of the guy with the cart?

Zero. It was a commercial.

 

[gadget_lover]

And of course, it depends on what state and country you are in. In
Calif, the general rule appears to be that anyone remotely associated will be sued...

We have such concepts as creating an "Attractive Nuisance", where the car owner is responsible for damage a thief causes if the owner has left the keys in the car. Quite silly, of course.

Also in Calif, the driver that rear ends someone is aways responsible. The concept being that every driver is responsible for making sure there is room to take evasive action if necessary.

In Calif, you can be sued (successfully) for defending home and property. In Texas, on the other hand, they seem to have a "He had it coming" defense.

Daniel

 

[BB]

I always thought it ended up being a much "simpler" problem to figure out basic auto accident liability (probably varies by State)...

In the shopping cart case, it is the driver of the car who backed up fault and would have to pay the car he hit (the "injured party")--

Of course, in the US you can sue for anything, so the driver of the moving car could sue the rolling shopping cart "driver"...

However, I would expect the liability there to be the expected damages caused by the shopping cart ding--not the damages caused by carelessly backing up to avoid a $100 ding (probably more these days) vs a $1,000 worth of damage to the car behind.

I had asked this question before of police (or possibly insurance carrier--years ago, forgot who--when I was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light by somebody who said he was avoiding an accident--his insurance paid for my damages)--Say I am driving along on a multi-lane road and somebody on my right does something dumb and swerves (possibly out of control) into my lane. I swerve left, miss the serious accident with guy to right--and I then clip the person on my left (regardless of seriousness)

I was told that it would have been better to stay in my lane (and be hit) as I would have strict liability because I "hit" the car to my left when trying to avoid the other accident.

In the end, you will have to decide which is safer to be hit, or to try and avoid the accident but end up in another--possibly less dangerous--accident and then trying to get your losses back by suing the first driver...

I have avoided several rear-end accidents by breaking traffic laws--one I drove up on the right shoulder to miss being rear-ended (I was on a motorcycle so that was pretty easy). The other, I had to, from a full stop, run a red light because somebody was coming up too fast on my rear, bad intersection design (sloping right turn, trees, can't see the regular signal light from any distance--they had to install a second overhead signal light to the left over the incoming traffic lanes--if I had been hit, and the guy had no insurance, you can bet I would have tried to sue the city for the poor intersection design/maintenance).

In both cases--"breaking" traffic laws allowed there to be no damage. If I had caused "secondary" accidents--I would assume that I would be held responsible for the consequences (and would be trying to sue third parties to recover damages too).

-Bill

 

[Handlobraesing]

I always thought it ended up being a much "simpler" problem to figure out basic auto accident liability (probably varies by State)...

In the shopping cart case, it is the driver of the car who backed up fault and would have to pay the car he hit (the "injured party")--

Of course, in the US you can sue for anything, so the driver of the moving car could sue the rolling shopping cart "driver"...

However, I would expect the liability there to be the expected damages caused by the shopping cart ding--not the damages caused by carelessly backing up to avoid a $100 ding (probably more these days) vs a $1,000 worth of damage to the car behind.

I had asked this question before of police (or possibly insurance carrier--years ago, forgot who--when I was rear-ended while stopped at a traffic light by somebody who said he was avoiding an accident--his insurance paid for my damages)--Say I am driving along on a multi-lane road and somebody on my right does something dumb and swerves (possibly out of control) into my lane. I swerve left, miss the serious accident with guy to right--and I then clip the person on my left (regardless of seriousness)

I was told that it would have been better to stay in my lane (and be hit) as I would have strict liability because I "hit" the car to my left when trying to avoid the other accident.

In the end, you will have to decide which is safer to be hit, or to try and avoid the accident but end up in another--possibly less dangerous--accident and then trying to get your losses back by suing the first driver...

I have avoided several rear-end accidents by breaking traffic laws--one I drove up on the right shoulder to miss being rear-ended (I was on a motorcycle so that was pretty easy). The other, I had to, from a full stop, run a red light because somebody was coming up too fast on my rear, bad intersection design (sloping right turn, trees, can't see the regular signal light from any distance--they had to install a second overhead signal light to the left over the incoming traffic lanes--if I had been hit, and the guy had no insurance, you can bet I would have tried to sue the city for the poor intersection design/maintenance).

In both cases--"breaking" traffic laws allowed there to be no damage. If I had caused "secondary" accidents--I would assume that I would be held responsible for the consequences (and would be trying to sue third parties to recover damages too).

-Bill

As for breaking a law, I hear that if the consequence of not breaking the law was more serious, then you're not criminally negligent. Something I was taught in class..

Say you're boating completely drunk, which you shouldn't have been doing. If you beach on a private beach marked no trespassing, the professor's argument was that the consequence of trespassing was less severe than continuing with boating, therefore the boaters are not criminally negligent.

 

[Sigman]

The jury typically decides...

 

[greenlight]

So if you're boating sober, and you pull up on a private beach and party and get drunk, you have the right to stay there just because it might be unsafe to leave?

 

[James S]

breaking a traffic law to avoid being hit is called defensive driving and will not get you extra tickets anywhere I've lived. As long as it doesn't cause further accidents or problems.
That is, of course, at the mercy of the police officer or judge. You could get lucky and get one who understands, or you could get screwed and get one that is going to be a stickler because they are having a bad day totally unrelated to anything you did. Ah, sweet lady justice!

In any case, if you have to do something technically against traffic laws to avoid an even worse situation or accident, then you shouldn't shy away from doing that!

I know a woman who was actually chased through 3 red lights by a guy harassing her in another car. Though she fully admitted to what she was doing, she caused no further accidents as it was late at night and the police officer called it defensive driving and didn't give her any trouble at all. While the other guy got those tickets and a whole host of others...

 

[Handlobraesing]

breaking a traffic law to avoid being hit is called defensive driving and will not get you extra tickets anywhere I've lived. As long as it doesn't cause further accidents or problems.
That is, of course, at the mercy of the police officer or judge. You could get lucky and get one who understands, or you could get screwed and get one that is going to be a stickler because they are having a bad day totally unrelated to anything you did. Ah, sweet lady justice!

In any case, if you have to do something technically against traffic laws to avoid an even worse situation or accident, then you shouldn't shy away from doing that!

I know a woman who was actually chased through 3 red lights by a guy harassing her in another car. Though she fully admitted to what she was doing, she caused no further accidents as it was late at night and the police officer called it defensive driving and didn't give her any trouble at all. While the other guy got those tickets and a whole host of others...

It would probably depend on degree of negligence. If you swerve and drive on the shoulder to avoid a car that made an illegal turn in front of you, what you say is understandable.

If you swerve to avoid rear ending someone who slammed on their brakes I don't think so. You were negligent by following too closely resulting in your inability to stop without hitting/making unlawful moves.