We all hope that we are never involved in a car accident. Unfortunately the chances are about one in four that we will be involved in a car accident at some point in our lifetime. With over six million accidents on America’s roadways each year, sometimes it seems inevitable! So what happens if you have been involved in a car accident that involved more than one vehicle? How do you determine who is responsible for your injuries? According to Sonoma car accident attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates, determining fault in a multi-car accident can be a long and tedious process sometimes.
The State of California, like most other states, operates under a doctrine of negligence known as “comparative negligence”. Negligence is a legal term used to describe fault or blame for an accident. There were historically two basic types of negligence for accidents – contributory and comparative. Luckily, only five states still use contributory negligence. Under contributory negligence, if you did anything at all (contributed) to the accident, then you could not recover anything for your injuries. As you can see, this tends to produce unfair results. If, for instance, you were only 5% responsible for the accident, you were still barred from receiving anything for your injuries. Under California’s comparative negligence laws, everyone involved in the accident can share the responsibility for the accident. Negligence is apportioned according to the person (or entities) contribution to the accident, according to Sonoma car accident attorney Emery Ledger. Therefore, more than one person, or entity, can be held responsible for the accident according to how much they contributed to the accident.
To make this clearer, let’s imagine a multi-car pile up on Interstate 101 with five cars involved. Imagine that car number one unexpectedly slammed on her brakes to avoid hitting a deer. Then, car number two rear-ended car number one causing it to shoot into oncoming traffic and collide with cars three, four and five. A huge mess right? You are car number three. Car number one may be partially responsible for slamming on her brakes. Car number two may also be partially responsible for following too close. Cars four and five may have been speeding making the impact of the accident worse and therefore also have some responsibility. The possibilities are endless with a multi-car accident. The point is that more than one person may actually be responsible. As long as you are less responsible than the sum total of all the other parties in the accident, then you may still be entitled to recover for your injuries, says Sonoma car accident attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates.
As you can see, determining who was responsible in a multi-car pile up can be very complicated and is best done with the help of an experienced car accident attorney. If you would like to retain the help of an experienced Sonoma car accident attorney, please make and appointment with Sonoma car accident attorney Emery Ledger of Ledger & Associates. He can be contacted at 1-800-300-0001 or through his web page at www.ledgerlaw.com.
