Pedestirans Killed By A Car And Wrongful Death Claims
By: J. Hernandez
Submitted: 2010-08-26 21:55:26 | Word Count: 856
All too many pedestrians die every year in a motor vehicle accident. Some of these fatalities will result in a wrongful death claim. These are challenging lawsuits which are frequently strongly defended by insurance companies and contain hard medical, accident reconstruction and legal issues.
For any vehicle accident case, insurance company adjustors, when they recommend any settlement offer at all, will structure the offer dependent not on the victim's injuries and loses but instead on the risk faced by the insurance company. There are numerous ways in which insurance companies try to limit their risk. For example, these cases often involve (1) denials of liability by the defendants (driver, employer, others who contributed to the accident) and the insurance companies insuring the defendants; (2) insurance issues (including the unavailability of insurance, underinsurance, multiple insured defendants and excess insurance); (3) economic issues (including whether the victim was married and had any children (especially minor children), the age and general health of the victim, and the loss of future earning capacity) that influence the valuation of the case; and (4) non-economic issues that affect case valuation. A lawyer handling one of these lawsuits thus needs to have the skill and experience to deal successfully with the many challenges that will likely arise in the matter. Consider:
[ advertisement ]
A vehicle which was witnessed speeding by a witness at about 6:00 in the morning struck into a pedestrian briefly thereafter. The police who investigated the accident revealed that a bystander had seen the vehicle speeding shortly before the accident happened. The police also reported that the vehicle was low on break fluid and had a dirty windshield (which can affect the driver's ability to see ahead) but did not have any cleaning fluid for the windshield.
The pedestrian who was hit was a woman, aged sixty-six. She landed 27 feet from the point of impact. She had fractures to several ribs, to her skull, to her clavicle, even to her wrist. She was taken to a local hospital where she died from her injuries. She was survived by her family that consisted of a husband, five children, and six grandchildren. The law firm that represented her family reported that they obtained a $725,000 settlement at mediation.
This case involved a motor vehicle driven by a female in the early evening hours. She took off from the scene of the accident after hitting a male pedestrian. The victim - a man who was the father of two children and who held down part-time work - died as a result of the accident. Once they arrived at the scene the police commenced a search for the hit-and-run driver, found her, and arrested her. She was arrested. She was charged for leaving the scene and for the negligent operation of a vehicle resulting in a death. A settlement of $1.15 million was reported by the law firm that represented the family of the victim.
While sharing several parallels these cases also differ in several respects. The law firms that handled each of these cases accomplished substantial recoveries for the families of the victims. But note that the settlement in the second case was more than 50% larger than that in the first. What factors might explain that difference? Well, consider that the plaintiff was 66 years old in the first case. While the report of the case does not specify this point, it is likely that she was retired and had no real loss of earning capacity. The victim man in the second case was working even if only part-time. The case report, however, does not indicate his age or how much he earned. Nor does it offer a loss of earning capacity calculation. But this alone, especially if his children were minors, could explain difference.
Further factors that could have influenced the sum of the settlement
included the total insurance coverage available in each case and the history of verdicts in the jurisdictions where each matter would have been tried.
The lower the risk an insurance company adjuster believes they face by taking the lawsuit to trial, the lower the offer they will make, if they make an offer whatsoeverl. Handling pedestrian death cases requires experience and skill. A lawyer representing the victim's family should not be in a rush to reach a settlement. Indeed, many times the best way to handle these cases is to perform a complete investigation, have a deep understanding of the accident scene, know the way in which witnesses describe the accident, have a sense of how the parties and the witnesses will be perceived by a jury, and have a good knowledge of the range of awards generally given for similar cases by juries in the jurisdiction where the case will need to go to trial.
Author Resource:-
Joseph Hernandez is an Attorney accepting motor vehicle accident cases. To learn more about pedestrian accident cases, fatal car crash and fatal car accident cases visit the websites
