Why is someone that was driving at more that DOUBLE the legal BAC limit awarded anything after an auto accident? Was there no negligence on her part for being sloshed while operating a motor vehicle?
Maybe I’m extreme, but if you’re injured while BREAKING THE LAW, you should not be able to pursue remedy under the law.
The permanent injuries sustained by this individual are tragic, but isn’t it possible they were completely avoidable to a driver in an un-intoxicated state?
I agree with BC. No money should have gone to the parents or so called “victim”. If she wasn’t driving drunk, this would have never happened. Maybe it even saved the life of some other person who might have been at the receiving end of a car crash by the drunken woman.
Without knowing the details of the case, I hesitate to put any blame on the drunken driver. I have seen accidents where the drunken driver was totally blameless for the accident. The drunken state of a driver doesn’t decrease the blame of the driver at fault for the accident. She could have been driving at the speed limit and obeying all traffice devices and along comes NASCAR blasting through the residential area and slamming into her. We don’t have all the facts from this article – and without them, I won’t condemn any payments to her.
…when the burglar slipped on some ice on the sidewalk. This suit is ridiculous, and I am sorry, she was driving drunk, she made that choice, and she deserves squat. I will admit to Still Sober that not all of the facts were presented out there, and she may have ran a red light and hit the police officer. I would like to know how fast she was going herself, her driving record, etc.
On the other hand, please correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that all police vehicles have cameras that record incidents. And a friend of mine mentioned that there are also speed monitoring devices on municipal vehicles. Interesting case indeed!
It is a shame that the article doesn’t give more facts describing the details of the accident itself. There appears to be a lot of assumption that the woman driving under the influence was the sole negligent party, and that her negligence was the proximate cause of the loss; or, alternatively, that there is (or should be) some statute that eliminates her rights under civil law to recover damages just because she was drunk.
There certainly aren’t enough facts related in the article, in my opinion, to form the notion that this was an “unjust settlement”.
Anyone familiar with my IJ/CG blogs will know that I am not even close to being a claims “liberal”. But sorry guys, as a former police officer who’s main job was to investigate city vehicle accidents including those of my fellow officers, and traffic fatalities and DUI’s during the “lull” (which wasn’t often; many police officers are terrible drivers because of the bad habits they pick up during their careers); and as a twenty five-year plus liability adjuster involved in the handling of governmental liability claims on behalf fo the governmental entities, I cannot agree that being drunk eliminates your rights under civil law, unless they have been eliminated by statute, nor should they.
I have personally investigated many accidents (both as a LEO and as an adjuster) where the drunk driver was not the at-fault driver, not even by a small percentage. Let’s look at the flip-side to negating the drunk’s rights; sober people, be they police officers or otherwise, who negligently hit drunks don’t deserve a break just because they were lucky enough to hit a drunk, and not another sober person. Why should they?
Yes, many departments do employ video cameras and speed sensors in police vehicles. I suspect that the reason why the city paid more than the statutory cap is an indication that something in the video, and/or the sensor, when combined with the other evidence, presented a compelling reason to enter into a settlement above the statutory cap, and that settlement above the cap was cheaper than trying the case.
Since I’ve “been there and done that”, I wouldn’t dare to presume that the settlement was “unjust”. I suspect that the correct adjective is “prudent”.
Why is someone that was driving at more that DOUBLE the legal BAC limit awarded anything after an auto accident? Was there no negligence on her part for being sloshed while operating a motor vehicle?
Maybe I’m extreme, but if you’re injured while BREAKING THE LAW, you should not be able to pursue remedy under the law.
The permanent injuries sustained by this individual are tragic, but isn’t it possible they were completely avoidable to a driver in an un-intoxicated state?
I agree with BC. No money should have gone to the parents or so called “victim”. If she wasn’t driving drunk, this would have never happened. Maybe it even saved the life of some other person who might have been at the receiving end of a car crash by the drunken woman.
Without knowing the details of the case, I hesitate to put any blame on the drunken driver. I have seen accidents where the drunken driver was totally blameless for the accident. The drunken state of a driver doesn’t decrease the blame of the driver at fault for the accident. She could have been driving at the speed limit and obeying all traffice devices and along comes NASCAR blasting through the residential area and slamming into her. We don’t have all the facts from this article – and without them, I won’t condemn any payments to her.
…when the burglar slipped on some ice on the sidewalk. This suit is ridiculous, and I am sorry, she was driving drunk, she made that choice, and she deserves squat. I will admit to Still Sober that not all of the facts were presented out there, and she may have ran a red light and hit the police officer. I would like to know how fast she was going herself, her driving record, etc.
On the other hand, please correct me if I am wrong, but I was under the impression that all police vehicles have cameras that record incidents. And a friend of mine mentioned that there are also speed monitoring devices on municipal vehicles. Interesting case indeed!
It is a shame that the article doesn’t give more facts describing the details of the accident itself. There appears to be a lot of assumption that the woman driving under the influence was the sole negligent party, and that her negligence was the proximate cause of the loss; or, alternatively, that there is (or should be) some statute that eliminates her rights under civil law to recover damages just because she was drunk.
There certainly aren’t enough facts related in the article, in my opinion, to form the notion that this was an “unjust settlement”.
Anyone familiar with my IJ/CG blogs will know that I am not even close to being a claims “liberal”. But sorry guys, as a former police officer who’s main job was to investigate city vehicle accidents including those of my fellow officers, and traffic fatalities and DUI’s during the “lull” (which wasn’t often; many police officers are terrible drivers because of the bad habits they pick up during their careers); and as a twenty five-year plus liability adjuster involved in the handling of governmental liability claims on behalf fo the governmental entities, I cannot agree that being drunk eliminates your rights under civil law, unless they have been eliminated by statute, nor should they.
I have personally investigated many accidents (both as a LEO and as an adjuster) where the drunk driver was not the at-fault driver, not even by a small percentage. Let’s look at the flip-side to negating the drunk’s rights; sober people, be they police officers or otherwise, who negligently hit drunks don’t deserve a break just because they were lucky enough to hit a drunk, and not another sober person. Why should they?
Yes, many departments do employ video cameras and speed sensors in police vehicles. I suspect that the reason why the city paid more than the statutory cap is an indication that something in the video, and/or the sensor, when combined with the other evidence, presented a compelling reason to enter into a settlement above the statutory cap, and that settlement above the cap was cheaper than trying the case.
Since I’ve “been there and done that”, I wouldn’t dare to presume that the settlement was “unjust”. I suspect that the correct adjective is “prudent”.