South Florida Injury Lawyers Blog
When there is a multi-vehicle, chain reaction accident, conclusions regarding liability can be difficult to reach. Because multi-vehicle accidents usually involve high insurance payouts, insurance companies typically assign trained accident investigators to examine the facts of each claim.
Often, it comes down to who was in the rear (as drivers are expected to maintain a safe driving distance), whether speed, distraction or alcohol was involved and the time and distance between one accident and another. Insurance companies may view pileups as several individual accidents, depending on the circumstances.
In the case of Baumann v. Zhukov, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was asked to weigh liability in a fatal truck accident that killed a father, pregnant mother and two young children in two separate vehicles that were struck by a fatigued truck driver that failed to stop with the rest of traffic that was backed up on the highway from an earlier crash. Continue reading →