Sued by a Pedestrian for an Accident Caused By A Different Driver

[lawsuitheadache]

My question involves an injury that occurred in the state of: California

Somewhat complicated case:

I was involved in a two car accident. A tourist was renting a car in San Francisco and hit my car at such an impact that my car was pushed into a walking pedestrian. My car was totaled. Fortunately the pedestrian was okay (was told by my insurance company that she left the hospital in 2 hours so nothing major).

The rental car company and my auto insurance did a bunch of discussions and deemed I was not at any fault so everything I lost got paid for (payment for a new car on what my car was worth).

The pedestrian got no money from my insurance company since I was not deemed at fault.

The pedestrian a year later is taking me to a civil suit - I'm obviously not the primary defendant, the French person is. The person who hit my car went back to France. My insurance company is obviously representing me and taking care of all the stupid headaches.

Question:
- Can the French person be brought back to court and be made to pay?
- Obviously my auto insurance only covers a few thousand dollars (whose pays over a million anyways?) and I was sued for close to a half a million from "emotional damages" and "loss of work" and "medical injuries". How do they calculate how much I'm liable for?

Thx!

[SChinFChin]

As far as a French citizen "bought back to court" is the USA, that would not be possible in this case. Assuming for the moment the person is a French national, to "bring him back to court" in the USA depends on provisions of the extradition treaty between the USA and France that cover French nationals. So far, for years and years, Roman Polanski, a film director, could not be bought back to court in the USA for allegedly molesting an underaged girl some 30 or so years ago. The extradition treaty covers certain types of crimes, and what Polanski purportedly did is not covered under the treaty. What you have here is a civil matter, and even if he can back to the USA voluntarily to testify, he has no problem paying the air fare and take time off from work to make you happy, but if there is a judgment rendered against him, and he doesn't pay, there is no way for you to enforce an USA judgment in France. So why even bother to bring him to the USA??

This should be a case handled by your insurer's attorneys. Normally, the "owner of the car" is liable, and in this case, would be the "car rental company, so there is no need to look into "extradition". It is their responsibility to make sure that if one of their lessees get into an accident with their cars, they are covered, or have the lessee buy the insurance. When this goes to court, your insurer would then in turn sue the rental company. Normally, going to court and covering the legal fees is part of your insurance, regardless of the amount of your liability coverage.

[jk]

unless the injured party can show some fault on your part, you should not be found liable for anything here. I suspect your insurance company is attempting to get you released as a defendant and will hopefully be successful. Getting tied up into such a suit is something it would be preferable to avoid if possible. If the plaintiff can argue there was some fault on your part that caused them to be injured, you could end up on the losing end here.

It is typical to file suit against all possible parties. If you fail to sue the actual liable party, by the time any given suit comes to completion, it is often beyond the statute of limitations to initiate another suit. So, you just sue everybody that was involved. Generally their attorneys will get the innocently involved parties released from the suit early on.

So, what has your attorney said so far?

[lawsuitheadache]

All good points. Basically the defendent's attorney is still suing the rental car company and myself. My insurance company lawyer is going ahead to deny all such claims of myself being guilty (running a red light at the intersection, driving wrecklessly, talking on the phone, other stupid lawyer stuff, etc).

The only issue is that it was a local road and I was driving around 30-35 mph and the speed limit was 25 mph. Even then the police that came to the scene didn't write me a ticket for anything and said it wasn't my fault.

[jk]

the police do not determine fault. They can state their opinion but that does not mean much in a court. Not being ticketed does not prove fault or lack of either. Unless the speeding can be considered contributory to the damages received by the pedestrian, I would expect your lawyer to be able to get you released from the suit.