Personal injury cases can be complicated, and they tend to become trickier when they involve multiple defendants. Consider this – you suffer serious injuries after a slip and fall accident in a supermarket. Who do you hold responsible, the supermarket owner, the owner of the property, or a third-party vendor? Or could you hold all three liable? As you can see, personal injury cases with multiple defendants can seem complex from the onset.
How Multiple Party Personal Injury Claims Work
Personal injury claims and lawsuits with multiple defendants involve holding more than one party liable for the injuries a victim suffers. These could include individuals, businesses, insurance providers, as well as government agencies. Personal injury claims with multiple defendants are typically more complex than ones with single defendants because they need to account for factors like shared liability, varying degrees of liability, and different insurance policies.
Key Challenges
When multiple parties are at fault for a personal injury claim, establishing liability can be problematic because there’s a possibility that every defendant may play a different role in the accident that resulted in injuries. It is owing to this that defendants often try to pin the primary blame on each other. Here are the top challenges in personal injury cases with multiple defendants.
- Determine the role of each defendant. This step requires identifying each defendant’s specific role in a personal injury case. For example, in a car accident, was a government agency responsible for potholes on a road and a motorist for driving over the speed limit? However, establishing the role of every defendant is not easy because each will have his/her/their own version, and not many are willing to accept fault.
- Apportion each defendant’s fault. Apportioning fault in a personal injury case requires determining each defendant’s share of responsibility, where one party may bear a higher percentage of the blame than another. As the number of defendants in a case increases, so does the difficulty in apportioning liability.
- The joint and several liability factor. In New York, the joint and several liability law applies when it comes to cases with multiple defendants. This means it is possible to hold all the defendants liable for your damages, collectively or individually. It allows you to seek all the damages from a single party, even if others were at fault. However, this defendant can then ask other defendants to contribute owing to their partial responsibility, which can make the process long-drawn.
A Multiple Party Personal Injury Claim Example
Assume you’re involved in an automobile accident with a car that was exceeding the speed limit. The car driver’s lawyer implicates the government agency responsible for maintaining the road, suggesting that a pothole caused the driver to lose control and swerve into oncoming traffic, thereby causing the accident. In this case, you’re up against two defendants – the errant car driver and the government agency in question.
The court hearing your case decides that both defendants are equally at fault, apportioning 50% liability to each, and awards you $100,000 as compensation. This means both parties will have to give you $50,000 each. However, given the joint and several liability law, you may choose to sue just one party for the entire amount.
Common Personal Injury Claims with Multiple Defendants
Lawyers who work on personal injury claims come across numerous scenarios that involve two or more defendants.
- Road accidents. When multiple vehicles end up colliding together, it might be possible to hold more than one driver responsible for the accident. The degree of fault a court assigns to them depends on their role in the accident.
- Workplace accidents. Workplace accident attorneys come across personal injury cases with multiple defendants fairly regularly. This is because while your employer might be responsible for your injuries, other parties like equipment manufacturers, contractors, and sub-contractors could also be liable.
- Product liability. If you suffer injuries because of a malfunctioning, defective, or faulty product, you might be able to hold its seller, distributor, and manufacturer liable for your damages.
What the Law in New York Says
While the joint and several liability law allows you to hold one or all parties responsible for your injuries liable to pay your damages, there are other legal aspects you need to know as well.
- Comparative fault. If a court decides that you are also partially at fault for your injuries as per New York’s comparative negligence rule, the compensation you receive might decrease according to the percentage of fault assigned to you.
- Statute of limitations. The statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits in New York is three years from the date of the accident, although there are a few exceptions. Once this period ends, you lose your right to seek legal recourse.
The Role of a Jury
While cases that end up in New York’s small claim courts tend to proceed without juries, you have the chance of a jury trial if you have serious injuries or are seeking significant damages. In this scenario, you may expect six jurors to determine what percentage of blame to assign to each defendant. In the absence of a jury, this responsibility rests with the presiding judge.
What You Need to Do
When multiple parties are at fault for a personal injury claim, it is important to prepare for what lies ahead. Once you get the medical attention you need and gather as much information as you can from the scene of the accident, this is what you need to do.
Get Legal Help
You should get in touch with a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible, and you must refrain from discussing the case with the errant parties, their lawyers, and their insurance companies. In addition to offering you advice, your lawyer will gather evidence, collect witness statements, and go through police and accident reports.
In addition, your lawyer will negotiate with all the defense lawyers on your behalf, which can become more challenging when defendants are trying to shift responsibility to other parties. If negotiations don’t result in a favorable settlement, your lawyer can prepare to battle it out in court.
Don’t Insist on a Lawsuit
Keep in mind that a lawsuit with multiple defendants can be a long-drawn affair. Besides, only a small percentage of personal injury cases end up in court, with around 95% of them ending in settlements. However, since negotiations in personal injury cases with multiple defendants can get complicated, with different parties wanting their way, your lawyer should determine if you should aim for a settlement or verdict.
If your case reaches a final settlement with multiple defendants, it is upon the defendants to determine who needs to pay what percentage of the total compensation amount. If one or more of them cannot arrive at a consensus, they might consider taking each other to court. However, this does not concern you and all you need to worry about is getting the full compensation amount.
Get Ready for a Lengthy Process
Personal injury lawsuits with multiple defendants typically take more time to conclude than ones with a single defendant. One reason that that each defendant has a separate legal team that is trying to dispute its client’s liability. In addition, they can also try to dispute each other’s liability. Not surprisingly, personal injury claims with multiple defendants tend to take more time to settle because of complicated negotiations. If these cases end up in court, they can even take years.
Conclusion
Keep in mind that filing a multiple party personal injury claim does not mean you can get more compensation for your injuries. This is because your damages don’t change despite the number of defendants in question. However, holding multiple parties liable can give you access to more insurance coverage and assets to cover your damages. This is especially the case if one of the defendants is a big business or the government.
Given the complexities that can arise in such cases, it’s best to hire a legal firm that has adequate experience in handling personal injury cases with multiple defendants. This way, you can focus on your road to recovery while your lawyer builds a strong case in conjunction with other specialists like medical and accident reconstruction experts.