Articles Posted in Motor Vehicle Cases

Here is an interesting article from Auto Week about new and improved (?) electronic data recorders.

EDRs currently obtain data from airbags, yaw and stability sensors, antilock brakes, traction controllers, throttle controls and engine monitors.  They initiate only when sensors indicate that a crash is imminent or has occurred.  Some also keep data such as secondary impacts and vehicle roll angle for as much as five seconds after a crash.

However, the new version of the "black boxes,"  called vehicle status data recorders (VSDRs), run constantly and collect additional data such as wheel and engine speed.  Used by Nissan,  VSDRs  gathers and stores vehicle operating data.  Some fear that the information can be used for voiding warranties.  Others have privacy concerns.

A defendant is permitted to argue that the light from the setting sun hindered his vision and that he was not negligent in failing to see (and then striking) plaintiff’s car.

The Kansas Supreme Court rejected the argument of the plaintiff that the defendant was negligent as a matter of law.   The Court said

under Kansas law, when a constant condition exists that knowingly blocks or impairs a driver’s vision, the decision to continue driving without exercising reasonable diligence is negligence as a matter of law.  The so-called blinding light rule from Diaz [206 Kan. 650], however, provides an exception in cases where a driver’s vision is suddenly blocked by some action beyond his or her control. Under such circumstances, the driver is not necessarily negligent for something that occurs while the driver is temporarily blinded. In other words, a sudden occurrence may create a factual question regarding the reasonableness of the driver’s behavior in reacting to the temporary condition.

Grandstaff v. Bowman, No. E2007-00135-COA-R3-CV,  (Tenn. Ct. App. May 29, 2008), is a case that reminds careful readers of the perils of filing a personal injury case on the eve of the statute and then simply sitting on it.  As a result of this conduct, the plaintiff lost the opportunity to add a corporate defendant who employed the individual defendant at the time of the car wreck.

Plaintiff attempted to use Sec. 20-1-119 to get around the problem; Judge Susano correctly ruled the statute inapplicable. 

Plaintiff then tried to say that he did not discover the existence of the corporate defendant until a date within one year of the date of filing.  Not a bad argument – unless one considers these facts:

The Court of Appeals for the Western Section has said that a plaintiff in a wrongful death case has made out a claim of negligent entrustment of a vehicle against the parents of a drunk driver.

Here are some essential facts viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff: 

"Like the defendant in  [v. East Tennessee Pioneer Oil], in this case the [defendant]Johnsons clearly provided and controlled the means by which [their son the defendant] Jack was able to operate the vehicle. Regardless of whether the Johnsons purchased the vehicle from Ms. King and subsequently entrusted it to Jack,   [The plaintiff] Mr. Watrous has presented evidence that the Johnsons repaid a loan Jack had taken against the title to the vehicle the day before it became due. The Johnsons do not dispute that, had they not paid off the title loan, the Concorde would nave been repossessed by Tennessee Title Loans. Thus, as Mr. Watrous asserts, the Johnsons essentially “re-purchased” the Concorde from Tennessee Title Loans and provided it to Jack. Further, it is undisputed that Jack had no access to funds other than his student loans and those provided by the Johnsons, that the Johnsons provided Jack with the funds to repay loans that had become due, and that the Johnsons paid virtually all of Jack’s expenses. The Johnsons do not dispute that they had knowledge of Jack’s history of driving under the influence, or that Ms. Johnson provided Jack with a check in the amount of $100 to be cashed at a gas station the night on which Jack struck and killed Ms. Watrous."

Here is a handy little decision that reminds of the existence and limits of the suspension statute.

You know the suspension statute.   It tells us that  "[i]f at any time any cause of action shall accrue against any person who shall be out of this state, the action may be commenced within the time limited therefor, after such person shall have come into the state; and, after any cause of action shall have accrued, if the person against whom it has accrued shall be absent from or reside out of the state, the time of absence or residence out of the state shall not be taken as any part of the time limited for the commencement of the action. " T.C.A. § 28-1-111 (2000).

In Jones v. Johnson. No. W2006-01859-COA-R3-CV (July 16, 2007) the Court of Appeals for the Western Section applied the statute in a personal injury case.   You will recall that "the suspension statute is inapplicable to toll a statute of limitations where there is a valid method of service of process on an out-of-state defendant."  Arrowood v. McMinn County, 121 S.W.2d 566, 568-69 (Tenn. 1938).  However, "[i]n Lam v. Smith, 891 S.W.2d 207 (Tenn. 1994), the Supreme Court recognized an exception to the general Arrowood rule in cases where (1) the plaintiff lacked knowledge that the defendant is an out-of-state resident, and (2) the plaintiff had exercised due diligence in trying to ascertain the location of the defendant, but nevertheless remained unaware of the defendant’s nonresident status."

Walk into any courtroom in the state in any given week and there is a one-day trial underway in a soft tissue injury case.  A defense lawyer is standing before the jury, waving a photograph of the plaintiff’s vehicle and saying "How can the plaintiff be hurt?  The rear bumper of her car was barely dented!"

Can a defense lawyer do that?  Can he or she argue that the plaintiff was not hurt because the property damage is minimal?  Or does a defendant need expert testimony to make that argument? Indeed, does the defendant need expert testimony to even introduce the photos in such a case (assume no claim for property damage)?  How are those photos relevant?

The New Jersey Supreme Court has just ruled that such photos are admissible and that it is permissable for defense counsel to make an argument like the one suggested above.  Why?

The L.A. Times  has written a major story on safety problems at U-Haul.

An excerpt:  "U-Haul, the nation’s largest provider of rental trailers, says it is "highly conservative" about safety. But a yearlong Times investigation, which included more than 200 interviews and a review of thousands of pages of court records, police reports, consumer complaints and other documents, found that company practices have heightened the risk of towing accidents."

And here is an interesting tidbit: "JOHN ABROMAVAGE, U-Haul’s engineering director, once testified that as a witness for the company in some 200 cases, he had never seen an accident he regarded as U-Haul’s fault."

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association recently released a Large Truck Crash Causation Study in response to a federal law that  required the organization "to determine the causes of, and contributing factors to, crashes involving commercial motor vehicles."

From the Executive Summary:

"A nationally representative sample of large truck fatal and injury crashes was investigated during 2001 to 2003 at 24 sites in 17 States. Each crash involved at least one large truck and resulted in at least one fatality or injury. Data were collected on up to 1,000 elements in each crash. The total sample involved 967 crashes, which included 1,127 large trucks, 959 non-truck motor vehicles, 251 fatalities, and 1,408 injuries.
An action or inaction by the drivers of the truck or the other vehicles involved were important reasons leading to crashes in a large majority of the cases. Driver recognition and decision errors were the type of driver mistakes coded by crash investigators or law enforcement officials most often for the trucks and passenger vehicles. Truck drivers, however, were coded less frequently for both driving performance errors and non-performance problems (e.g., asleep, sick, incapacitated) than passenger vehicle drivers. In crashes between trucks and passenger vehicles, driving too fast for conditions and fatigue were important factors cited for both drivers. However, fatigue was coded twice as often for passenger vehicle drivers and speeding more often for truck drivers.
Brake problems were coded for almost 30 percent of the trucks but only 5 percent of the passenger vehicles. Roadway problems were present in 16 percent of the two-vehicle cases, and adverse weather conditions were present in approximately 13 percent of the crashes. Interruption in the traffic flow (previous crash, work zone, rush hour congestion, etc.) was coded in almost 25 percent of the two-vehicle crashes."

Some people have found a way to turn a police chase case into a Sec. 1983 action.  It was always tough – and it just got tougher.

Here is the issue as stated by Justice Scalia:  "We consider whether a law enforcement official can, consistent with the Fourth Amendment, attempt to stop a fleeing motorist from continuing his public-endangering flight by ramming the motorist’s car from behind. Put another way: Can an officer take actions that place afleeing motorist at risk of serious injury or death in order to stop the motorist’s flight from endangering the lives of innocent bystanders?"

The bottom line:  "The car chase that respondent initiated in this case posed a substantial and immediate risk of serious physical injury to others; no reasonable jury could conclude otherwise. [Officer] Scott’s attempt to terminate the chase by forcing respondent off the road was reasonable, and Scott is entitled to summary judgment."

What causes truck wrecks?  According to Ron Miller, a trial lawyer in Maryland, the Federal Motor Carry Safety Administration’s 2006 report shows  there are approximately 141,000 truck crashes every year. In 77,000 of these truck accidents – more than half – fault was attributed to the truck driver.

Ron’s post at The Maryalnd Injury Lawyer Blog lists the top ten causes of the wrecks caused by truckers as follows:

1. Prescription drug use (26%)