Foreseeability in Auto Accidents
Foreseeability is a concept that can greatly affect the outcome of any personal injury suit. The basic gist of the concept is that for a person to be found liable to a particular victim for negligence, it must be foreseeable that his or her negligence would impact or harm that victim. For example, assume a bus driver is texting while driving and negligently drives onto the sidewalk, causing a cyclist to swerve into a valuable statue that is sitting in the yard of a homeowner and ruing the statue. Since it was foreseeable that the driver’s negligence would affect persons on the sidewalk and potentially cause them to react to get out of the way, the homeowner will probably be able to recover from the bus driver (and his employer) to recover the amount of the real and personal property damage caused by the driver’s negligent actions. By that same token if the cyclist had swerved into the statue which had then fallen onto a shotgun, causing it to discharge and kill a cat sleeping in the window of the house next door, it is likely the damage caused by the loss of the cat would be recoverable against the bus driver since it is not really foreseeable that the bus driver’s negligence would affect the cat sleeping in the window some distance from where the negligence actually occurred.
Concepts like this one can make a substantial difference in exactly who a party can recover from, which may affect that party’s ability to be fully compensated for his or her injuries. In this situation, knowing that the bus driver and thus the bus company can be held liable will often prove much more favorable to the plaintiff than trying to recover damages from a random cyclist, especially if the amount of damages is large. Such situations show why it is often advantageous to hire an experienced personal injury attorney who can make sure that the plaintiff holds all possible parties responsible and can maximize the plaintiff’s recovery.
