Source: https://www.massachusettsinjurylawyersblog.com/category/car-accidents/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 23:56:58+00:00

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Car Accidents Category Archives — Page 2 of 4 — Massachusetts Injury Lawyers Blog Published by Bristol County Injury Attorney — Suffolk County Accident Lawyer — Karsner & Meehan, P.C.
When filing a lawsuit in Massachusetts’ civil court system, the alleged at-fault party must be notified properly. When the at-fault party is an employee of a company, notifying the right person can get complicated. A recent Appeals Court case reviews the notice requirement under the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, G.L. c. 258. In this case, a woman was injured by a city bus as she was entering another vehicle. She filed suit two years after the accident, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) answered, raising the affirmative defense that she did not properly give notice under G.L. c. 258, § 4. The trial court overruled the second motion by the MBTA to grant summary judgment in its favor, and the MBTA appealed.
G.L. c. 258, § 4 requires that notice of any tort claim against a public employer be presented to its executive officer within two years after the cause of action arises. Under the MBTA, this would have been the general manager and the rail and transit administrator. In this case, the injured woman sent notice of her claim to the “Claims Department” but not to the executive officer. The MBTA appealed, arguing that the notice did not comply with G.L. c. 258, § 4. The trial judge disagreed. The motion was overruled, the judge determining that there was notice.
Both parties agreed on the occurrence of several events. They agreed that the injured person’s attorney at the time sent out timely notice of the claim and that the injured person didn’t attempt to personally communicate during the two-year period after the accident and didn’t know what other communication may have occurred between her attorney and the MBTA during this time. The MBTA agreed that it had made a settlement offer to the injured person and other plaintiffs and that the other plaintiffs accepted their offers and settled their cases. The court determined that the MBTA had actual notice, based on the actions of the claims department. The court ruled that it fell under the “actual notice” exception, which overlooks a deficiency when there’s evidence the executive officer did know, thus fulfilling the presentment requirement.
Underinsured motorist benefits are designed to help pay for costs related to a car accident when the at-fault party’s insurance policy falls short. Underinsured coverage is generally elective, and several cases have looked at whether or not benefits were explicitly rejected. In Progressive Direct Ins. Co. v. Wilson (16-P-544), a mother and a son appealed a declaratory judgment entered in favor of the mother’s auto insurance company. The insurer claimed that the policy only provided underinsured benefits to members of the household, and the son was not a member of the household as defined by the policy.
The mother and son argued that the court erred by granting the insurer’s motion, and the insurer should be estopped from denying the son benefits based on a conversation the mother had with a representative. The appellate court looked first at the mother’s policy, which provides damages to “any household member…while occupying an auto not owned by you.” The household member must be related by blood, marriage, or adoption. To counter the mother and son’s claim, the insurer provided medical records, a driver’s license, and a lease to show that the son lived in Unit One of the building, rather than Unit Two, where his mother resided. The insurer also pointed to a conversation the mother held with an insurance representative prior to the purchase of her policy. In that conversation, the mother stressed that the son did not live in the unit with her and that he lived downstairs.
At the lower court, the mother and son insisted that they did live in the same household, pointing to all of the parties doing laundry in Unit One, the fact that both units were always accessible to the other members of the family through unlocked back doors, and the tradition of the mother cooking for the entire family. The mother viewed the conversation with the representative as proof that she relied on the representative in her understanding of the policy. The court disagreed, finding that estoppel was not applicable in this circumstance. For estoppel to occur, there must be a representation that is intended to induce reliance, an act or omission by the person because of the reliance, and a detriment as a consequence. The court did not think the mother could come away from the conversation with the mistaken understanding that her son was covered under the policy because the bulk of the conversation dealt with where he didn’t live. The representative did not make any statement or implication that the son did not need to be listed in order to receive underinsured benefits. There was no mention of underinsured motorist coverage. The lower court’s ruling was upheld, and the declaratory judgment against the insured and her son remained intact.
In urban environments, many modes of transportation are used to get from one place to another. Roadways are often shared by pedestrians, different sizes of vehicles, and bicycles. However, pedestrians and cyclists are the ones who have the greatest risk of a catastrophic injury if they are struck by a distracted or generally careless driver. In the event of such an accident, it is important to have experienced counsel at your side so that all options of financial and legal relief are available to you.
In Basiony v. City of Boston (15-P-98), the Appeals Court of Massachusetts reviewed a jury verdict awarding damages to a bicyclist struck by a police officer going the wrong way down a one-way street. The collision caused a physical injury to the man and property damage to the bike. The city appealed the trial court’s refusal to grant a new trial, arguing that the judge should have granted its requests for evidentiary rulings made throughout the trial.
The city objected during trial to the testimony of the patrol supervisor who was working during the officer’s shift. The supervisor conducted an investigation of the accident and wrote a report of his findings. The judge did not allow the introduction of the report itself but allowed the supervisor to provide testimony, overruling the objections of the city. The city felt this was improper, but the trial court and the Appeals Court disagreed. The court did not find any error regarding the testimony and pointed to the long history of broad discretion granted to trial judges. The court felt the supervisor was an appropriate witness to the accident, since he arrived on the scene soon after it occurred. The court also felt it was reasonable for him to testify about police department rules that dictate when police cruisers are allowed to disregard traffic signs and signals in an emergency.
In a Massachusetts personal injury case, the injured party must meet his or her burden of proof in order to successfully obtain damages from the at-fault party or parties. Different court proceedings require different levels of proof. Criminal cases place a high burden on prosecutors to show the defendant is guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.” In civil suits, the burden of proof is often met by a “preponderance of the evidence” or a “more likely than not” standard. Depending on the case, presumptions created by statute may also exist, which increase the burden on a party to rebut a specific assumption within the suit.
The Massachusetts Appeals Court case of Markuns vs. Commerce Ins. Co. (15-P-335) demonstrates what must be done when facing a presumption created by a statute or regulation of the Commonwealth. This appeal, while rooted in a rear-end collision accident, did not stem from a personal injury action. Massachusetts allows insurance companies to add a surcharge following an accident, which can be appealed to the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds (Board) and the civil appellate system. If a driver is on the Safe Driver Insurance Plan, certain accidents are presumed to be the driver’s fault unless the driver presents enough evidence to overcome it. In Markuns, the driver of the colliding car appealed the presumption that he was at fault because he struck the car in front of him.
The driver centered his argument on his testimony during the hearing in front of the Board. The driver felt that his testimony was not rebutted by the insurance company and was left uncredited by the Board and the Superior Court. The Appeals Court disagreed, pointing out that the record shows the driver’s testimony was considered by the Board, and it was ultimately within their discretion to apply or not apply the presumption to the facts before them, based on the totality of the circumstances. The Appeals Court also disagreed with the driver’s assertion that the prior ruling entities failed to apply a presumption to the other driver within 211 CMR 74.00, which assumes fault if you fail to signal at a turn. Again, the court felt the lower judicial bodies were within their discretion to credit or discredit the evidence before them. The lower court allowed the ruling against the driver to stand.
Defense tactics in personal injury litigation in Massachusetts can get aggressive. In a recently issued Massachusetts Appeals Court opinion, Anderson v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co. (14-P-1554), a severely injured man waited 10 years for an award of over $3 million. Even after this delay and the subsequent payment, the defendants filed another appeal of the original jury verdict award and the additional interest granted by the judge after the first unsuccessful appeal. The injured man and has family also appealed, arguing the defendants failed to provide a prompt, fair, and equitable settlement from the 1998 accident.
The man was catastrophically injured while walking across an intersection when he was struck by a hospital shuttle bus owned and staffed by the hospital. Even after receiving immediate care from doctors riding the bus as passengers, the injured man endured several months of hospitalization and care for his numerous head injuries. Following the accident, an investigation took place at the behest of the automobile insurer used by the hospital shuttle bus. The investigation concluded that the accident happened due to the driver’s inattention, and the liability and exposure was clear and exceeded the policy’s limits. The investigator recommended negotiating an out-of-court settlement, but negotiations never took place.
Instead, the insurers took another path by using what the trial judge called “irresponsible and overly-aggressive defense work on the part of the [insurer].” Some of the insurance company’s actions included suppressing crucial evidence that went against their theory that the injured man ran in and out of traffic between parked cars and darted in front of the bus. The injured man and his family pursued evidence of the initial investigation throughout the trial, but they were repeatedly told that the investigation reports, witness interviews, and transcripts didn’t exist. It took an offhand comment from a reconstruction expert five years after the accident to reveal that there was additional material available.

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