This week I got a call from a man that was in an accident, a serious accident about a month and a half ago. He didn’t do anything because he didn’t want his insurance rates to go up. He was sitting at a light and was hit in the rear and pushed into a car in front of him. A three car collision. Somebody told him, that what happens in those cases is, he would make a claim against the guy behind him and the guy who he hit would make a claim against him. He didn’t want his insurance to go up, and he had medical insurance so, he didn’t want to make a claim.
What happened was, his injury was getting worse and somebody said "Hey, you know you may want to call a lawyer, because if that is what happened it doesn’t make sense." And, it doesn’t make sense. The reason is there is something in the tort law called "proximate cause". And if one is the proximate cause of an accident, then that ONE is responsible for ALL people who are injured. Not just the one who he touches.
So if you are sitting at a light and you have not done anything wrong and the guy comes along and slams into you. And you are pushed into the car in front and that car is pushed into the car in front of them… to infinity. The only person responsible is the person who initially caused the injury. And, that is the first car. So I dutifully explained this to the caller. So please don’t listen to others, call a lawyer if you are not sure.
