Determining who is legally responsible for an accident can be a very difficult process. However, it is necessary if you have hired one of the injury lawyers in Indianapolis and are pursuing a personal injury case. Typically, negligence or carelessness is the reason why an accident occurred. It is pretty rare for the accident not to be the fault of one of the two parties involved. This is especially true if the accident is a car wreck.
Determining Who Is Legally Responsible
One of the first things that injury lawyers in Indianapolis have to do is figure out how was responsible. The vast majority of the time an accident is caused because someone was carless. The general rule of thumb is that the person who was less careful was probably the one who caused the accident in the first place. When determining liability it is important to consider the following:
* If the person who was injured was not where they were supposed to be and that caused the accident, chances are very unlikely that the accident would be the other parties fault. For example, if you were to get hit by a car while J-walking it could be argued that it was your fault.
* If the injured person was being careless then there is no reason for the other person to be legally responsible for anything.
* If the person who caused the accident was working at the time of the accident, the responsibility would fall in their employer’s lap.
* If an accident happens on a specific piece of property, the owner of the property is usually at fault.
While it is not as common, there are times where the accident was caused by more than one person. For example, imagine a car wrecking into the back of another car and pushing it into the back of a third car. Would the car in the middle be at fault of wrecking into the front car? Technically, anytime you rear end someone the accident is automatically your fault unless the person was driving in reverse. A case like this would be important to have a lawyer because it really could go either way.
