Articles Posted in Automobile Accidents

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If you are injured in a Tennessee car accident, truck accident or any other type of event, you do not have the right to file suit against the insurance company of the person or company that caused the injury.  Instead, if you want to recover damages for what happened you must file suit against the person or company that caused the injury.

Why?  Because, like most states, Tennessee does not permit what is called a "direct action" against the insurance company for the person or company that caused the accident.  In fact, under Tennessee law, the judge and jury are never even told that the person or company that you filed a lawsuit against has insurance.

What the Legislature is afraid of is that if a jury knows that the person who is being sued has insurance to pay for some or all of the loss the jury might award damages regardless of fault.  This is clearly a myth – most jurors rightly assume that the person being sued has insurance and there are plenty of court cases that result in no money or a very low amount being awarded to the injured party.  Nevertheless, we continue to hide the fact of insurance coverage from jurors.

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Tennessee law provides that when a city employee negligently causes a car or truck accident while they are working for the city  the city is responsible for the harm caused.  Thus, the a lawsuit can be filed against the city (not against the driver) and damages for medical expenses, lost wages, pain, suffering and other losses can be recovered.  Click on the link for more information on the types of damages that can be recovered in a Tennessee personal injury case.  Click on the link for more information about wrongful death cases in Tennessee.

Tragically, the law limits the liability of any Tennessee city to $300,000 for any one person who is injured or killed as a result of the negligent driving by one of its employee’s while he or she is working for the city.  Thus, even if your medical expenses are $500,000, the law will not permit you to recover more than $300,000 from the city whose employee caused the accident.

A lawsuit against the city must be filed within one year of the date of the accident causing an injury or death.  Failure to file a lawsuit on time will result in the loss of your rights.

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Tennessee law requires that a personal injury lawsuit be filed within one year of the date causing an accident.  Failure to file a lawsuit on time against the person or company responsible for your injuries will result in a loss of your rights.

There are certain exceptions to the one year deadline for filing personal injury lawsuits, but you should not assume that any exception applies to you unless a competent lawyer familiar with all of the facts advises you that you have more than one year to file a lawsuit.  

Do not wait until the last few days before the one-year deadline to file a lawsuit expires to hire a lawyer. Delay in seeking a lawyer means that valuable evidence may be lost and it is likely that mistakes have been made that effect the value of the case.   

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A "summary judgment" is a decision by a judge that an automobile accident, truck accident, or other type of case should not go to a full trial before a jury.  A judge can make a decision not to let a jury decide a case only if the judge determines that there is no dispute about the important facts of the case and that a reasonable jury could arrive at only one result in the case.  If that is true, the judge will grant summary judgment (that is, a judgment before trial) to the person who he or she thinks should win the case before permitting a full trial on the case before a jury.

Sometimes a judge will grant a "partial summary judgment."  Thus, the judge will determine that a car accident or truck accident was the sole fault of the defendant (the person or company sued in the case) but a jury must determine what damages were caused in the wreck and the monetary value  of the damages.

Summary judgments are very rare in auto accident and truck accident cases.  They are much more common in medical malpractice cases and in cases where people have been injured by defective or unreasonably dangerous products.

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It is almost always necessary for an experienced Tennessee injury attorney to obtain an injured person’s medical records before a personal injury claim for a car or truck accident can be fully evaluated,  Also, the at-fault driver’s insurance company will also want to see the records before authorizing a settlement of the claim.

Many personal injury clients get frustrated at the delay in obtaining medical records.  It can often take a month or more to obtain medical records from doctors, hospitals, and physical therapists, and even more time from certain health care providers.  There is no good excuse for these delays – virtually every provider charges for this service and the delays are extremely frustrating, both for the lawyer and the lawyer’s client.

The delays are caused because the health care providers don’t have enough staff on hand to meet the demand for records, and put record requests by attorneys for clients at the bottom of the stack.  In other words, these health care providers give a higher preference for record-copying to other health care providers and insurance companies than they do lawyers.

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Tennessee law requires that lawsuits concerning injury claims that arise from automobile accidents must be filed in court no later than one year after the date of the accident.  Thus, the case must be settled, or a lawsuit filed, or the injured person’s rights will be lost.

There are a couple of exceptions to this general rule, but you should not assume that any claim survives the one-year deadline unless a Tennessee automobile accident lawyer familiar with all of the facts tells you that you have more than one year to file suit.

You should not wait one year to seek the advice of a lawyer.  Not only does a lawyer need some amount of time to file suit, but he or she must investigate the merits of the case.  In addition, a delay in hiring lawyer means important evidence can be lost, memories can fade, and thus your case can be adversely affected.  It is recommended that you seek an experienced accident attorney promptly after the accident so that you can fully understand your rights and begin to take the steps to protect those rights.

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As a Nashville and Tennessee automobile accident attorney, one question that I am frequently asked is what happens when the person who causes the motor vehicle does not have any liability insurance. Here is the answer?

1.  First, don’t assume that there is no liability insurance just because the driver did not have proof of insurance in his or her vehicle at the time of the accident.  In Tennessee you are supposed to have proof of insurance present when you drive (most of us keep a card mailed to us by our insurer in the glove compartment of the vehicle) but some people forget to do so or do not replace an expired card with a new card.  So, even if the police officer investigating the crash reports that the at-fault driver did not have proof of insurance, it is possible that the driver had liability insurance in place at the time of the crash.

2.  It is possible that some other person (other than the driver of the car or the owner of the car) is responsible for the crash.  For example, on several occasions we have discovered that an uninsured driver was running an errand for his employer at the time of the crash.  Under Tennessee law, the employer is responsible for the crash if the employee was engaged in an activity that was furthering the employer’s business interest at the time of the crash.  This is true even if the employee was using the employee’s personal vehicle.   From time to time there are others who contributed to cause the crash, such as  the bar who served too much alcohol to the at-fault driver, a defect in the roadway; an unsafe or defective vehicle, and in appropriate cases those options need to be investigated as well.

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Distracted driving is taking lives on our highways, and this study takes a look at what is taking the attenion of drivers away from the road.

According to police report data analyzed by Erie Insurance, a automobility liability insurer, of the more than 65,000 people killed in car crashes over the past two years, one in 10 were in crashes where at least one of the drivers was distracted. the data comes from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)  maintained by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Rank Distraction Type Percentage of
Distracted Drivers
1 Generally distracted or “lost in thought” (daydreaming) 62%
2 Cell phone use (talking, listening, dialing, texting) 12%
3 Outside person, object or event, such as rubbernecking 7%
4 Other occupants (talking with or looking at other people in car) 5%
5 Using or reaching for device brought into vehicle, such as navigational device, headphones 2%
6 Eating or drinking 2%
7 Adjusting audio or climate controls 2%
8 Using other device/controls integral to vehicle, such as adjusting rear view mirrors, seats, or using OEM navigation system 1%
9 Moving object in vehicle, such as pet or insect 1%
10 Smoking related (includes smoking, lighting up, putting ashes in ashtray) 1%

 

The numbers are probably conservative (that is, under-reported) because many people are reluctant to admit that they were distracted immediately before the crash.

The study did not look at the number of injuried caused by distracted driving, but instead looked only at deaths.

 

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From time to time we are asked to represent people who are injured in a car accident but were driving illegally at the time of the wreck, that is, they did not have a valid license to operate a car or truck on Tennessee roads.  These people are obviously concerned that their failure to have a driver’s license will affect their ability to recover damages for the personal injury car accident that was not their fault.

Tennessee law provides that the failure to have a driver’s license does not affect a person’s right to recover compensation in a car or truck accident that was not the driver’s fault.  I am not saying that you should drive without a valid license, or if you have a restricted license that you should drive outside the proper scope of the restrictions.  It is important to follow the law.  My only point is that if you make a mistake and drive without a valid license or outside the scope of a restricted license and end up in an car or truck accident that is not your fault current law says that your mistake cannot be used against you.

Despite this law, I can envision several circumstances in which the failure to have a valid license at the time of the wreck might become relevant in a car, so I encourage you to tell your lawyer the truth about the status of your license during your initial meeting with the lawyer.

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