Phoenix Car Accident Attorneys
Attorney Representation in Phoenix, Arizona Since 1996
Negligence and Laws
If you sustain injuries in Arizona by the negligence of another party you are entitled to recover a settlement for reimbursement of medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering. There are other entitlements as well that you may be able to recover or be reimbursed for if you have been injured by the negligence of another individual. Each case is different. What is different about Arizona compared to some states is that when you bring a claim, and if you have to file a lawsuit, the claim is against the driver of the vehicle or the name of the person whom caused the injury.
Let's say for example you are in a car accident in Phoenix and you are hurt. The other driver was at fault for the car accident. When you bring a claim against the other party it will be the name of the driver, not the owner of the vehicle. The insurance will go through the owner of the vehicle if the driver is different than the owner. This is assuming that the owner did not do anything wrong. There are some circumstances when the owner of the vehicle is negligent. You do have to prove the owner of the vehicle is negligent in order to sue them personally. If the owner did not do anything negligent, their auto insurance still applies though to the accident.
Let's look at some examples of how an owner can be negligent and when an owner is not negligent. An owner is not negligent if he let's his friend drive his vehicle and the friend causes an accident because he runs a red light by mistake. Under Arizona law, the friend caused the accident, but the owner's car insurance would be primary insurance and would be responsible for paying the injuries to the innocent injured individual. Secondary insurance would most likely be the driver's insurance. One of the jobs of a personal injury lawyer is to look at and try to uncover different avenues of insurance. In a personal injury claim in Arizona, there is getting compensated for the injury, but also uncovering manners in which to get paid for your injury.
In the case above, the owner would not be negligent because the owner did not do anything wrong. It is not negligent to let someone borrow your vehicle. Let's assume though that the owner knows his friend is drunk and still willingly gives him his car keys. Under that scenario, the owner would hold some negligence. At least, that is an argument that a good serious accident lawyer in Phoenix would make to have more options open for insurance available to the injured party.
When an injured party brings a claim, everyone involves knows the insurance company is paying. Under Arizona law, however, if you are unable to settle with the insurance company and you have to file a lawsuit, the law suit is the injured party versus the name of the at fault driver, or owner, or whomever is at fault. It should be said there are different laws if the driver of the vehicle was working at the time of the accident, whether it be a motor vehicle accident or any other type of accident. That being said, if we are talking about a vehicle accident where the person was not working at the time, the only thing on the litigation documents is the name of the person who was at fault. The name of the insurance company is never on the litigation documents unless there are some extenuating circumstances.
In other words, if you are sitting on a jury trial and the case is called out Smith v Jones, a juror might think in Arizona that Jones had no vehicle insurance. In all actuality, that is probably not true. Jones does have vehicle insurance, it is just that under Arizona law the litigation documents do not tell the jury or others if there is insurance and who the insurance company is at the time of the accident.
Personally I think that this is not a good law. The reason I do not like this law is because the jurors are led to believe that there is no insurance and are likely to feel bad for the defendant. Meanwhile, in almost all cases, there is insurance, otherwise the injured person's lawyer would probably not be bringing the case to trial if they did not think insurance would pay. The jury is never told that the law provides the jury not to be told if there is insurance or not. Therefore, the jury is led to believe that since they are not told anything that there must not be any insurance. If you are ever on a jury, you now know that just because an insurance company is not mentioned in the litigation documents, it does not mean that there is no coverage for the Defendant. It just means that the law does not allow you to know any specifics other than the details about the accident.
