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The recent case of Zaldivar v. Prickett, before the Georgia Supreme Court, dealt with issues of vicarious liability and negligent entrustment as they relate to car accident litigation.

Vicarious liability is a kind of strict, secondary liability that originates from the doctrine of respondeat superior. That isthe responsibility of a superior for the tortious acts of a subordinate. A person or business can be vicariously liable even if they haven’t actually engaged directly in any negligent behavior.

Negligent entrustment, meanwhile, is a direct form of liability that asserts one party negligently provided another with a dangerous instrumentality, and the person entrusted with that dangerous instrumentality caused injury to a third party with that instrumentality.

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Two vehicles crashed at an intersection in January 2012, with the impact sending one of those vehicles careening toward the sidewalk, where it struck a bicyclist.

The cyclist was seriously injured.

Subsequently, he sued both drivers, whom we will refer to here as V1 and V2. He alleged both had been negligent in their operation of motor vehicles, causing him to suffer injury.

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It was supposed to be one of the most joyous times in the young couple’s lives. They were recently married and had won a trip through their church to attend a marriage retreat in Fort Lauderdale. They were also expecting their first child, a boy, who was due within two months.

But they would never see that day. While standing outside the hotel cabana, located at the corner of a sharp curve with lots of fast-moving traffic, the pregnant wife was struck by a drunk driver. Both she and her unborn son were killed. Her husband, who had been in a nearby restroom, sustained only minor injuries. But his life would never be the same.

Jurors in the civil lawsuit against the drunk driver and the hotel determined husband/plaintiff should be awarded $24 million for his losses. In apportioning fault, jurors determined the drunk driver was 85 percent to blame, while the hotel was 15 percent responsible. If the verdict withstands an appeal (to which the hotel as alluded), it will owe $3.6 million.

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In any car accident lawsuit, there are a number of elements that must be proven in order for the case to be successful. Those elements include:

  • Defendant owed plaintiff duty of care;
  • That duty of care was breached;
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Emergency responders – including police officers – are given an enormous responsibility to make it to emergencies quickly. However, there is also an expectation that they will do so as safely as possible. 

These government workers are given a great deal of latitude in terms of liability, but only so long as they are acting within the scope of their employment and only as long as they are behaving reasonably under the circumstances.

Still, when the public is placed in jeopardy as a result of these actions, there may be grounds for litigation. The U.S. Department of Transportation estimates there are approximately 250,000 high speed chases annually. Of those, between 6,000 and 8,000 end in crashes, claiming the lives of 500 people and injuring some 5,000.

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A 4-year-old boy was killed and his 2-year-old sister severely injured after a box truck driven by an 18-year-old plowed into the back of their father’s vehicle early one Saturday morning.

The 4-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene in Davenport by emergency workers, while his sister was flown to a nearby hospital and listed in serious condition.

Authorities say the father was moving at a slow roll on U.S. 27 approaching a traffic light when the box truck, traveling at highway speed, braked just seconds before impact. The force of that crash sent the vehicle with the children forward into a pickup truck just ahead of them.

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One was a 17-year-old, just graduated from high school, on her way to the University of Miami in the fall. The other was a 29-year-old medical student, preparing to begin his clinical rotation this summer. Now, both are gone.

It happened on I-75 through Pembroke Pines, when a construction truck hauling concrete barriers pulled out into traffic on the fast-paced highway and into the path of the medical student. The truck was then struck by the vehicle driven by the 17-year-old, as concrete barriers flew out of the bed of the truck and onto her vehicle. Another large truck then barreled into the wreckage as well.

Authorities are investigating whether the concrete barrier truck, driven by a man whose commercial license had just been suspended and then reinstated days before the crash, was properly loaded and whether the driver followed proper procedure in exiting the construction site, located in the highway median.

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Defendants in personal injury cases are tenacious when it comes to rooting through the records of the plaintiff.

Of course, there are often legitimate purposes served in these efforts, primarily in determining whether the causation and extent of injury are as claimed by plaintiff. But many of these efforts go too far.

Luckily, we do have the court system to keep it in check. Still, you can’t count on the judge to fight for your best interests and privacy concerns. That’s the job of your attorney.

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Distraction among those behind the wheel is a serious problem in Florida. Officials with the Florida Department of Transportation calculate some 42,000 crashes in the Sunshine State were attributable to distraction. That’s almost certainly a low estimate because distraction is not as easy to to track or quantify as, say, drunken driving.

The most recent AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety study indicated nearly 60 percent of all crashes involving teen drivers are the result of distraction.

In recent years, this has driven a flurry of legislative action and advocacy around the issue, most commonly focused on sending and receiving text messages. But many view these laws -and Florida’s in particular – to be lax and difficult to enforce.

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A 43-year-old man was lucky to be alive, let alone escape with only minor injuries, after he lost his balance on the Sunshine Skyway bridge while changing a tire, sending him plunging over a railway and down about 30 feet to the water below.

Authorities say the man stopped on I-275 after the a tire blow-out on his sport utility vehicle caused him to lose control of the vehicle temporarily. The two passengers inside his vehicle at the time were not injured.

However, officers from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission were called to rescue the man, who was then taken to a nearby hospital. The Florida Highway Patrol has launched an investigation.

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