Injuries Caused by Animals

               Pets most commonly, dogs cause injuries in a variety of ways, biting, clawing, jumping & knocking people down, running & barking at people & making them lose their balance running into the street & causing vehicle accidents. A few states have laws making dog owners liable for any injuries their dogs cause away from the dog only if the owner knew or should have known that the dog was likely to cause the type of injury that occurred. A dog owner is usually covered by home owner’s or renter’s insurance for injuries caused by the dog & business owner is covered by business liability insurance for any injury caused by animal kept on the premises by the owner or any employee.

                In a claim for injuries caused by a dog, you & the insurance company will discuss whether the dog owner knew or should have known of a danger presented by the dog. The answer usually lies with the dogs’ past behavior. If the injury is a bite, & you can find any evidence that without provocation the dog had bitten, snapped, or lunged at anyone before, then you have gone a long way toward establishing a good claim. If the dog is of a “fighting breed”, you may be able to recover compensation even though you can’t prove any prior incidents of actual biting or snapping at humans. If your injury was caused by a dog jumping up & knocking you over, evidence that the dog frequently jumps up is enough, whether or not anyone has been knocked down before. If the dog is large, that too should make the owner aware of the danger, especially to small or unsteady people & if an accident was caused by an animal running into street, the fact that it has run out into the street before but the owner still lets the animal loose is good evidence of liability by the owner. Accidents also occur when vehicles run into farm or ranch animals that have wandered onto a road. Generally, an owner is liable for accidents caused by an animal that stays beyond the confines of the farm or ranch property.

              However, if the animal is being herded along or across a road that has signs warning that animals are lawfully present, it may be the driver who is responsible for an accident. If the animal is part of a working farm or ranch, the owner’s business liability insurance will deal with the accident. If the animal is not part of a business, then the property owner’s home insurance should handle the claim. 

Liability in Specific Types of Accidents

            There are no magic formulas or special language you have to master to show why someone was at fault in any particular kind of accident. All you have to bear in mind are the general rules of liability discussed in the first section of this post. You need only make a reasonable, commonsense argument about why a person or business was careless in acting or failing to act, and how that negligence caused the accident that injured you. And in accidents caused by defective products, you need not show any negligence on the part of the product’s maker or seller. Instead, you need to show only that you used the product in a normal way and that the defective or dangerous part of the product caused your injuries. The rest of this chapter discusses how these general rules are applied in specific types of accidents.

Remember, though, that an insurance adjuster might claim that you, too, were negligent, or that you were using a product improperly. So, when you think about the facts of your accident consider how the insurance company will view your actions and begin to plan your responses.

Car Accidents

Anyone who drives or rides in a car long enough is likely to be involved in at least a minor fender-bender. And on our crowded streets, pedestrians, too, are often involved in accidents with buses, cars, and bikes. The rules regarding liability for vehicle accidents apply both to injury claims and to claims for damage to your vehicle. Anyone who rides a bicycle or motorcycle knows that the roads are even more dangerous for two-wheelers than for cars. Also, special rules of the road apply only to two-wheelers. If you had an accident riding a two-wheel vehicle, your claim is given special attention below, in “Special Issues for Bicycles and Motorcycles.” But before turning to that section, familiarize yourself with the information in this section about vehicle accidents in general.

Special Rules for No-Fault policyholders

                About a dozen states have some form of no-fault (also called Personal Injury Protection) auto insurance.No-fault insurance is intended to prevent people with minor auto accident injuries from filing claims for any damages other than their property damage and medical bills, like pain and suffering. However, every no-fault plan permits claims for damages beyond medical bills in some circumstances. To see if you’re no-fault policy affects how you can make an auto accident injury claim. If you are covered by a no-fault policy that allows you to file a claim for damages against the person who was at fault for your accident, proceed against that person as explained here, exactly the same as if you did not have no-fault coverage.

Where to find help in showing fault

              Your argument to an insurance company that the other driver was at least partially at fault can be strengthened if you can find some official support that the other driver violated one or more rules of the road.

Vehicle code. One place to look for support for your argument that the other driver was at fault is in the laws that govern driving in your state, usually called the state vehicle code. A simplified version of these laws, sometimes called “The Rules of the Road,” is often available at your local department of motor vehicles office. The complete vehicle code is also available at many local department of motor vehicles offices, most public libraries, and all law libraries, and often online. There is a law library at or near every courthouse and at all law schools. In the index at the end of the last volume of the vehicle code are references to many rules of the road, one or more of which might apply to your accident. A librarian may be willing to help you with your search, so don’t be afraid to ask. If you believe a rule might apply to your accident, copy not only its exact wording but also the vehicle code section number so that you can refer to it when you negotiate a settlement of your claim.

Rule violations that always mean liability. Many rules of the road are subject to debate with insurance companies: Did the other driver really violate the rule? Did the rule really apply in your case? Did the rule violation actually cause the accident? But there are a few situations in which the other driver is almost always found to be at fault, and insurance companies don’t even bother to argue about it.

Rear-end collision. If someone hits you from behind, it is virtually always his or her fault, regardless of the reason you stopped. A basic rule of the road requires that you be able to stop safely if a vehicle stops ahead of you. If you

Cannot stop, you are not driving as safely as the person in front of you. The other surefire part of a rear-end accident

Claim is that the car’s damage proves how the accident happened. If the other car’s front end and your car’s rear end are both damaged, there’s no doubt that you were struck from the rear. In some situations, both you and the car behind you will be stopped when a third car runs into the car behind you and pushes it into the rear of your car. In that case, it is the driver of the third car who is at fault and against whose liability insurance you would file a claim. However, even if you have been rear-ended, in a few circumstances your own carelessness may reduce your compensation under the rule of comparative negligence. A common example is when one or both brake or tail lights were out, especially if the accident happened at night. Another example is when a car had mechanical problems but the driver failed to move it fully to the side of the road.

Left turn accident. A vehicle making a left turn is almost always liable to a vehicle coming straight in the other direction. Exceptions to this near-automatic liability can occur if:

• The vehicle going straight was going much too fast, but that is usually difficult to prove; it would mean only that the other vehicle had some comparative liability, not that the turning vehicle could escape responsibility altogether

• The vehicle going straight went through a red light, but that is also very difficult to prove unless there were witnesses outside two vehicles who saw the accident clearly, and

• The left-turn vehicle began its turn when it was safe but something unexpected happened that made it have to slow down or stop its turn. Nonetheless, the law says the vehicle making the left turn must wait until it can safely complete the turn before moving in front of oncoming traffic. Also, as with a rear-end collision, the location of the damage on the vehicles sometimes makes it difficult for the other driver to argue that the accident happened in some way other than during a left turn. So, if you have had an accident in which you ran into someone who was making a left turn in front of you, almost all other considerations of fault go out the window, and the other driver is nearly always fully liable.

General Bike Rights (Part II)

               Following an accident in which you were bumped by a motorist passing in the same lane, an insurance adjuster might suggest that you were not as far to the right as you should have been. You may respond that it was the motorist’s duty to wait until it was safe to pass; knocking you over was not an acceptable driving option. If the motor vehicle was any wider than an average car, you might also want to measure the width of the traffic lane, up to the line of parked vehicles, if any, where the accident occurred & determine the width of the vehicle that struck you. Measure the width of your bicycle at the handlebars (or wider, if you were bumped on a part of your body that extends out farther than the bars). If the extra width of the motor vehicle made passing you safely at that spot difficult, you have an even stronger argument that the vehicle had no right to attempt the pass at that point.

                Right turn right-of-way. One of the most common causes of bicycle accident is collision with a car turning right. While making a right turn, a car passes through the path of a cyclist, whether the cyclist is traveling in a traffic lane or in a bike lane. Some of these accidents happen when a car passes a cyclist, & then slows down while turning right, moving directly into the path of a bicyclist who has nowhere to turn. Or a motorist simply turns right directly into a cyclist without seeing, & often without looking for the bike.

                In either of these situations, the motorist is liable for the accident. One of the basic rules of the road is that a vehicle, & because side-of-the-road laws force cyclists to the right, a cyclist is entitled to continue straight through an intersection without yielding to a motorist turning right.

                Lane splitting. Many motorcyclists, & a few bicyclists, engage in the driving maneuver known as “lane splitting”. Done mostly in traffic jams, it means squeezing a bike between lanes, passing the cars in stop-&-go traffic on each side.

                Lane splitting is not recognized as a legal maneuver in any state except California. In most states it is not specifically prohibited but is regularly interpreted by police & courts as unlawful. Even in California, it is legal only if done safely. & “safely” is always very much a judgment call. The mere fact that an accident happened while a rider was lane splitting is very strong evidence that on that occasion it wasn’t safe to do so.

                If you have been involved in an accident while lane splitting, you will have a hard job convincing an insurance adjuster that the accident was not completely your fault. Remember, in most states you need not show that the accident was entirely the other driver’s fault; you need only show that the other driver’s carelessness was a substantial cause of the accident.

 

General Bike Rights (Part I)

        All states have what are called “side-of-the –road” rules, which require bicyclists to ride on the far right side of the road, or in a bike lane, if they are not moving as fast as auto traffic. Cyclists following these rules account for the three most common types of road accidents for bicyclists;

·         Hitting the opening door of a parked car

·         Being brushed by a passing car or truck, &

·         Being struck by a motor vehicle turning right.

Fortunately, other laws combine with the side-of-the-road rules to help protect bicycle riders who share the streets with motor vehicles. In general, a bicycle has as much right to the roadway as a motor vehicle. Unless a specific law (as discussed below) directs otherwise, a cyclist may ride in the middle of a traffic lane & must be afforded the same rights of way as motor vehicles. You may need to remind an insurance adjuster about this more than once during the course of your claim negotiations.

                The following are general descriptions of the several rules that, taken together, determine liability in roadway accidents between bicycles & motor vehicles.

                Side-of-road laws & bike lanes. If a cyclist does not ride as fast as current motor vehicle traffic, the cyclist must ride as far as to the right side of the road as possible. (On one-way streets, the cyclist may instead ride to the far left). If a special bike lane is provided, usually on the far right of the roadway, a cyclist is required to use it.

                A bicyclist may leave the side of the road or the bike lane if the cyclist keeps up with moving traffic, if the lane is too narrow to share safely with passing cars, to make a left turn, or to avoid debris or other hazards.             

                Since a cyclist is required by law to ride close to parked cars, & a person is not permitted to open a car door unless it is safe to do so, an accident caused by the opening of a parked car door is almost always entirely the fault of the door-opener. An exception might exit if there was no motor vehicle traffic at all, thus eliminating the need for the cyclist to stay to the right. In this circumstance, the motorist who opened the car door might argue that the cyclist had an opportunity to avoid the door & thus was at least partly responsible for the accident.

                Space given by passing motor vehicles. Given that side-of-the-road rules force cyclists to share lanes with passing traffic, a companion rule requires motor vehicles to maintain a safe space while passing. Three feet is sometimes stated as a safe distance, though it is extremely difficult to be that precise when reconstructing an accident. The problem of sufficient passing space is particularly acute with trucks & buses, & with the ever-increasing number of enormous SUVs.

                Because a bicyclist has as much right to the road as does a motorist, a motor vehicle coming up behind a cyclist has a responsibility not to pass unless & until it is safe to do so. The motorist may need to slow down & wait until there is enough space, or change lanes, it is not the cyclist’s duty to stop or otherwise get out of the motorist’s way.