Motor vehicle and traffic accidents are the leading cause of serious traumatic brain injury. Falls and assaults are the next leading category. In the majority of these cases, the injured person is not to blame for the injury. Who is then?
While it may be easy to assign primary responsibility for an injury to another individual who caused an accident or a specific company for ignoring an unsafe condition, the ultimate legal question is not “Who is at fault?” but rather “Who is liable?”
Who is Liable
In most cases, the obvious answer is the individual or company directly involved and their insurance carrier. When the insured’s limits of coverage are sufficient to adequately pay for the victim’s injuries, there may be no reason to look into the question of liability any deeper. But when insurance coverage is absent or insufficient, the question of liability becomes important. And the answer to that question may not always be obvious.
The Other Party’s Employer
If you’re injured by the actions of someone who at the time was performing services for an employer, the employer has a certain legal liability for the employee’s activities. Even small companies commonly carry a minimum of $1,000,000 in liability insurance.
That an employee was actually “on the job” is sometimes a point of contention. Take the case of the executive assistant who was at fault in an auto accident resulting in a brain injury to another driver. The employer and employee maintained that she was performing personal errands. The facts indicated, however, that she often visited client’s stores during the day and was on such a visit at the time of the accident. The employer’s liability insurance paid for the other driver’s injuries.
Product Manufacturer
Numerous claims have been successfully settled with the manufacturers of products associated with head injury accidents. Claims against automobile manufacturers for design and manufacturing defects typically capture the headlines. Here are a few less-publicized examples.
In one case, a boy was seriously injured when shelves came loose from a wall and pierced his skull. The boy successfully recovered compensation not only from the establishment, but also from the shelf manufacturer for a faulty design.
In another case, a machine worker received a severe traumatic brain injury when the material he was working on came loose from a lathe and struck him in the head. It was determined this was not the first accident of its kind involving this manufacturer’s equipment, and that the manufacturer did not correct the design defect responsible for the accidents. Although worker’s compensation insurance legally protected the employer from a lawsuit brought by the employee, the employee received substantial payment for his injuries from the equipment manufacturer.
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