Passenger Lawsuit Rights After a Car Crash in PA
As a passenger, you can suffer injuries in a crash, leading to costs related to surgery, physical therapy, and other treatments. For individuals who experience serious injuries, they can be unable to work for weeks, months, or permanently. As a passenger, you are allowed to sue the driver of the vehicle you were riding in or any negligent party, even if that person is a family member.
Being Pennsylvania’s fourth most populous city, Reading is home to its fair share of accidents. Certainly, knowing your rights can empower you to make informed decisions. Our car accident lawyers understand what you need to know as a passenger filing a car accident suit in Pennsylvania.
Proving Negligence in a Car Accident Claim
Most car accidents involve a driver failing to use reasonable care, resulting in harm to another person, known as negligence. Even if you are a vehicle passenger, a successful lawsuit will depend on you proving the following elements of negligence:
Duty of Care
Motorists have a duty to follow traffic regulations and the rules of the road. This duty keeps other road users safe.
Breach of Duty
By either act or omission, the other driver fails to fulfill their duty of care. In a car accident, common examples of a breach of duty include running a red light, speeding in a school zone, or failing to yield the right of way.
Causation
Perhaps the most challenging component to prove is the correlation between the other driver’s actions and your injuries. Causation can be broken into two parts: cause-in-fact and proximate cause. Cause-in-fact (also known as actual cause) involves showing that the other driver’s actions began a chain of events leading to your injuries. In contrast, proximate cause (also known as legal cause) involves demonstrating that the harm you suffered was a foreseeable consequence of the driver’s conduct. A successful claim hinges on establishing both types of causation.
Damages
Passengers in a car crash can suffer physical, emotional, and financial losses (also known as damages in the law). Most damages in a car accident are compensatory damages (actual expenses) that the victim sustained. Compensatory damages include both economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages are out-of-pocket costs such as medical bills or lost wages. In contrast, non-economic damages are intangible losses that are not as easily quantifiable, such as pain and suffering or infliction of emotional distress. Damages that are awarded in a car accident suit are intended to make the injured party “whole” again.
Full Tort versus Limited Tort Insurance
Pennsylvania auto insurance law provides drivers with two options: full tort or limited tort coverage. While full tort coverage permits drivers to recover economic and non-economic damages in a lawsuit, drivers who have limited tort coverage can generally only recover economic damages. If you are using your own auto insurance and you have limited tort coverage, you will be unable to file a lawsuit if you do meet the state’s serious injury threshold.
However, if you have full tort coverage, you will be able to recover non-economic damages. Other exceptions allow limited tort policyholders to recover full tort damages, so you must speak with our Reading car accident attorneys to learn if you qualify.
Contact Our Car Accident Attorneys
A passenger in a motor vehicle collision can suffer just as serious injuries as the driver. If you or a loved one has been injured while in or around Reading, the responsible party should be held accountable. At Fanelli, Evans, & Patel, our Reading car accident lawyers understand the distress that you are facing following a crash. To arrange your free consultation, contact our firm online or by calling (484) 869-2113 today.