Who Bears Responsibility For Your Injury?

When an accident occurs, you may be eligible for compensation. Knowing who bears responsibility for the harm done to you is part of the investigation your auto accident lawyer will conduct. It's an important bit of information because you cannot gain compensation from just anyone. To find out more, read on.

The Blame Game

When you are hit and injured by a careless driver, then that driver bears the potential to be responsible for your injuries and other losses. Things can get tricky when you get hurt in certain situations, however. For instance, say the driver that hit you was employed by a delivery company and was driving a big green delivery van at the time. Then, you might be talking about taking action against the company instead of the driver and not for the reason you might think.

Large businesses tend to have what is known in legal parlance as "deep pockets." Most drivers have insurance, but those private vehicle polices are seldom worth much money. If you were to sue a driver and wanted more than the policy covers, then you might have to hope the driver was wealthy and able to pay you. None of those are reasons why you should sue the company instead of the driver, however. The reason is that the driver was acting as an agent of their employer when they hit you. In fact, the exact circumstances of the accident might even be linked to their status as an employee.

Dangerous Business Practices

All that is necessary to have a legal course of action against a large business is that a victim was harmed and the harm came to them because of an agent of the business. It can get worse, however. In some situations, the business practices of the business actually played a part in the accident. For example, if the driver of the delivery van had far too many packages to deliver that day and had worked far too many hours, that goes beyond carelessness and into negligence. When your personal injury attorney can show not just that the employee of a company caused you harm but that the harm was the result of a business practice, you may be entitled to punitive damages in addition to medical, pain and suffering, lost wages, and personal property losses. If you have been hurt as a result of a business or their employee, speak to a personal injury lawyer at once.