We all try to drive carefully, and to obey the traffic laws. Still, there are places, such as a parking lot, where even the best driver might get involved in an accident, and be held partly responsible. What should such a defendant expect, as the victim’s personal injury case proceeds?
What should the defendant’s actions be?
At the scene of the accident, the defendant does not need to admit fault. Instead, the defendant should share contact and insurance information with the other driver. By the same token, the defendant ought to cooperate with any traffic officer that arrives at the scene.
What defendants living in a no-fault state should expect to happen?
In that situation, the defendants’ own insurance company would cover all the medical bills and other losses. Still, that would not remove the existence of a real threat. The Personal Injury Lawyer in Kitchener knows that a responsible driver/defendant could become the target of a lawsuit.
The result expected after the filing of such a lawsuit would depend on the presence or absence of liability coverage in the sued driver’s policy. In other words, a huge financial responsibility might fall on someone that had failed to purchase an adequate amount of liability coverage.
Imagine a far-worse situation, one in which you were the responsible driver, and you had not bothered to buy any type of car insurance.
Because you had failed to buy insurance, you would have no liability coverage. As a result, your assets would be at risk, if an injured victim decided to sue you. The court would seek to use your assets, in order to cover the victim’s losses. Maybe you have let the court know that you have only a limited number of assets. That would not stop the court from going after what it could obtain. You would be required to pay whatever amount proved feasible.
You would not enjoy freedom from the demands being made by those that would want to be compensated for their losses. Some of those demands might come in the form of a series of phone calls. Others might reach you in the form of apiece of snail mail.
While those demands would be annoying, none of them could guarantee the release of non-existent funds. In other words, the injured victim would have little hope for receiving much in the way of compensation. Consequently, your actions on the road, combined with your failure to buy car insurance would deprive that accident victim of a way to get compensated fairly for any number of losses.
The legal system was designed as a way to help accident victims return to the position that they held before the accident. Unfortunately, it does not always work in the way expected.