Articles Tagged with motorcycle accident injury

Proximate cause is a legal concept that limits liability along the chain of causation. In order to establish that one person’s negligence is the proximate cause of another, a plaintiff must show there was:motorcycle

  • Defendant’s negligent act was the cause-in-fact (i.e., a reasonable certainty defendant’s actions caused the injury and injury would not have occurred but for defendant’s conduct);
  • Defendant’s negligent act was the legal cause of injury (i.e., The injury was foreseeable/ of a type that a reasonable person would see as the likely result of his or her conduct).

Questions regarding proximate cause come up a lot anytime there are chain reaction collisions. However, the farther apart in space and time the crashes occur, and the more that happens in the meantime (i.e., superseding causes), the lesser the chance that an act of negligence will be deemed the proximate cause of another’s injury. This is what was seen in a recent case out of South Dakota involving a motorcycle accident wherein two bikers crashed on the same road, near the same curve, but a 40-minute time span apart. The two motorcyclists never collided with each other. Still, the second motorcyclist (plaintiff) alleged the negligence of the first (defendant) created a dangerous condition that was the proximate cause of his crash. Continue reading ›

Auto insurance companies often will not pay an insured what is owed under uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage provisions without a fight. motorcycle2

Uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is coverage paid for by the insured in the event he or she is injured due to the negligent actions of another driver who either has a low maximum payout or lacks insurance. Although this type of coverage isn’t mandatory in Florida, it usually comes standard in most auto insurance packages, and people have to sign a waiver declining it if they choose to do so. It’s a good idea to have it, however, because recent studies indicate 1 in 4 drivers in Florida don’t have any coverage at all.

In the case of State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Earl, a motorcyclist suffered severe injuries in a 2008 crash after a semi-truck merged into his lane, forcing him off the highway at 65 mph. The motorcyclist survived, but the trucker didn’t stop and was never found. (Other witnesses on the road confirmed his account of what happened.)

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