Is Anyone Liable In My Florida Commercial Vehicle Accident?

In a commercial vehicle accident, it is common for negligence to play a role. If one or more drivers are found liable for an injured plaintiff’s injuries, they may be required by the court to pay monetary damages to the plaintiff. Alternatively, if a defendant is found not to have been negligent, they will not owe anything to the plaintiff, despite their injuries being fact. But is there ever a Florida commercial vehicle accident case where no one is liable? The answer is yes – in rare situations only.

Four Criteria To Establish

A Florida negligence case has four distinct parts that must be shown to the court. They are:

The defendant must have owed a duty of reasonable care toward the plaintiff, or to a class of which the plaintiff is a member – for example, Florida law requires all road users to drive in a way “so as not to endanger the life, limb, or property” of any person;
That duty must have been breached by the actions (or lack thereof) of the defendant;
That breach of duty must have caused tangible injuries to the plaintiff; and
Those injuries must have been caused directly by the defendant’s breach of duty, without any other intervening cause.

In commercial vehicle accident cases, the duty of care owed by road users is implicit, but one must still show a breach of duty, causation, and damages in order to recover at trial. If no breach of duty can be established, no one can be held liable.

Unforeseeable Causes Are Not Actionable

If no breach of duty can be established in a commercial vehicle accident case, it may mean that no one can be termed ‘at fault’ for the crash. There are certain situations where an accident has no foreseeable cause, and if an event is not foreseeable, the law generally declines to blame anyone for its occurrence. For example, if an outwardly healthy person has a heart attack while on the clock as a commercial driver, they cannot be held liable for negligence if their vehicle strikes another.

While Florida has a no-fault system for auto insurance, this does not mean that those clearly at fault for negligence or another civil tort will escape liability. If a person’s injuries are “significant and permanent,” the state’s tort immunity is lifted, allowing the injured person to sue in court as opposed to filing a claim with one’s personal injury protection insurer. Florida’s laws are intended to allow an injured plaintiff to get their day in court.

Contact A Tampa Commercial Vehicle Accident Attorney

If you have been injured in an accident with a commercial vehicle, it is important that you understand who may – or may not – be held liable for what you have been through. A Tampa commercial vehicle accident attorney from the Rinaldo Law Group can help to clarify your legal options. Call our office today at (813) 831-9999 to schedule a free consultation.

Source:

leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.1925.html