Multiple Accidents – Case Study

I recently acted for a very unfortunate lady who was involved in five separate car accidents in the space of 16 months. None of the car accidents were her fault but it is an extreme example of the difficulties you sometimes face when dealing with motor vehicle personal injury claims.

Each incident had to be looked into and its relative contribution to the client’s injuries assessed. When lawyers talk about “causation” they are referring to whether (and if so, to what extent) a particular negligent act was in fact responsible for the Claimant’s condition. Sometimes this is straightforward; so, for example, if someone suffers a heart attack six months after an accident, it is probably unlikely to have been caused by the accident. But if it occurs three days later, it’s a different situation.

So it is with multiple accidents: you have to disentangle them and work out what they were each responsible for and since (as in this case) they may overlap with each other, it is not always an easy task.

However, with good medical evidence and attention to detail, it can be done. Thankfully, they are a rare occurrence and I only hope that my client has now had her share of bad luck and can now (with suitable compensation) get back to relative normality.

Outcome

All were car accidents and they settled for $50,000. That figure related to three of the accidents. The first accident involved only a minor injury, and we only found out about one of the others late in the day (the claimant herself had forgotten about it as there was no injury but we still had to investigate it).