She was driving on a four lane road with no divider between the north and south bound lanes. A gentelman driving a car northbound had a heart attack and lost control of the car. Of course, as luck would have it, he looses control into the south bound lane where he makes contact with my co-worker. The gentleman is declared dead at the scene, presumably died before the impact. Has history of heart ailments. Autopsy confirms that he did in fact die of massive heart failure.
Co-worker ends up with minor back injuries and is laid up for couple weeks. No other passengers in either car except operaters of vehicles.
Question ---- Is his insurance responsible for his actions since he was not alive at the time he lost control of the car?
The insurance company would have no way of proving this. They’d have to assume that since he was behind the wheel of the car at the moment of impact, legally he was the vehicle’s operator, so yes, they’re liable.
The autopsy determined he died instantly. The crash occurred after he was dead. He technically lost control after he died. This is the point the lawyers had to deal with.
Well, if it was his brother Sid driving the car, and he strayed over the median and hit the oncoming vehicle, the insurance would still pay for it, right? I was under the impression that you insure your car, and it doesn’t matter who was driving it. Or is that just for damage to your car?
Quite apart from the question of automobile insurance, I believe autopsies to figure out whether an accident victim died before or after the crash are quite common for life insurance purposes - accidental vs. natural death may make a difference for life insurance payouts. I had a science teacher once who told us about an autopsy he’d seen - this was exactly the purpose of that particular autopsy.
I would WAG that the deceased auto insurance will still have to pay.
I can testify from personal experience on this one, insurance companies will try to do this, requiring the victim to go to court.
My father died at the wheel, and the autopsy revealed the cause of death was a massive coronary artery blockage, causing a very quick death. The vehicle left the road and rolled over, and three passengers were injured. When they made a claim against my father’s medical benefit of his car insurance, the claim was denied under the “act of God” clause. The reasoning was that because a heart attack is not a result of negligence, my father was not liable for the accident, therefore the insurance company didn’t have to pay. We ended up in the peculiar position of helping our friends sue my mother, and finally forced the insurance company to pay. This was not some fly-by-night insurance company either, it was AAA!!
Here in Canada the insurance company will be required to compensate for damages and I would presume that it would be the same in most western countries. The liability insurance is on the vehicle, not just the driver. This means that the vehicle owner is partially liable even if s/he was not in the vehicle when the accident occurred.
That fact aside, the liability insurance covers damage resulting from any act or omission that the driver initiated whether intentional or not. Since the heart attack caused the lack of control and since it preceded death, it was the action which resulted in injury and is therefore covered by insurance.
The only exception would be if the driver “wantonly and without regard” for the safety of others, intentionally induced the heart attack (by say, a drug overdose). In this case the insurance company may seek compensation from the estate of the driver by way of indemnification.
Nope. C’mon guys. This is GQ Can we avoid the WAGs?
Asssuming a non no-fault insurance state (such as Illinois), someone is responsible for a vehicle accident only if he is negligent. Negligence requires a duty owed to the plaintiff by the defendant, breach of that duty by the defendant, and damages to the plaintiff resulting as a result of that breach of duty*. The duty owed can be summarized as the responsibility to act reasonably under the circumstances.
If a driver dies or is incapacitated from an unforseeable cause and loses control of his car as a result, he cannot be found to have acted unreasonably. Therefore, no negligence and no liability to those injured. As insurance companies are responsible only for the torts of their insureds, the heart attack victim’s insurer has no responsibility. There are numerous cases on this point where the driver has a sudden heart attack or epileptic fit. If there is no history of the medical ailment, the driver causing the accident is not legally responsible.
As for your contention that “there is no way of proving” that the driver died of a heart attack, there are such things as autopsies, as previous posters have already pointed out. The purpose of an autopsy is to determine the cause of death. Expert testimony by a pathologist on this issue is admissible in court, so there is, in fact, a readily-apparent way of proving the heart attack.
*Note to any other lawyers reading this: Yeah, I’ve avoided a discussion of proximate cause. Can you really blame me? Besides, I believe Mrs. Palsgraf should have lost.
Podkayne makes an interesting point. While the heart attack victim’s insurance would not cover the claim of an injured third parties (a claim under the liability provision of the auto policy), a better argument could be made by the insured for damage to his own vehicle under the property damage portion of the policy. Haven’t seen a case on this issue. Would have to read the policy involved to give an opinion.
Sorry about your father. But there are a couple problems with your post. If your father died immediately, there would be no claim under the medical benefit part of the policy, unless the passengers were also insureds. (Normally, this would mean that the passengers were relatives of the primary insured (your father, presumably) who were members of his household.)
Random–might this make more sense if Fear Itself meant “under the part of my father’s car insurance that pays for medical expenses resulting from an accident?” and not “my father’s health insurance,” which I doubt AAA offers anyway? That way, the injured passengers’ relationship to the driver would be irrelevant.
I understand what you are saying, I think, but the distinction really doesn’t apply. Typical auto policies are really several insurance contracts in one. The best way of seeing this is to look at your bill.
First, and most importantly, you have liability coverage. If you injure someone, and get sued, this coverage applies.
Second, you have property damage coverage. If your car gets crushed by a tree branch in a windstorm, this coverage applies.
Third, you have theft insurance. If your car is stolen, this coverage applies.
Fourth, you have medical coverage. If you (or another insured) is injured, your medical expenses are covered. This coverage is usually very limited, and subordinate to basic health insurance that you may have elsewhere. Also, this doesn’t apply to third party health claims. If you run over a third party, her claim isn’t covered by the medical benefit. It’s covered by the liability part of the policy.
Fifth, you (probably) have uninsured/underinsured coverage. This means that, if you are injured by a third party who has no insurance or inadequate insurance, your own policy picks up the difference.
If an insured driver injures a third party not covered by the policy, the only part of the policy that applies is the liabilty coverage, not the medical benefir.
Random, while everything you said may be on solid legal ground, it demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of the insurance industry. People buy insurance because the industry fosters the false belief that the insured is protected from loss, and the insurance company will bear the risk. But when the time comes to live up to the promises they made, all too often the insurance companies hide behind inscrutable fine print, and use tactics of delay and deception that make Saddam Hussein look like a Sunday school teacher.
And the fact that unrelated passengers were injured in a vehicle driven by the insured, in an accident involving no other vehicles or other mitigating circumstances, and if the “reasonable man” test were applied, the court might order the insurance company to pay up?
Except when the insurance company decides no one is at fault, so they no longer accept the risk. And this is acceptable behavior?
The judge ruled in favor of the deceased`s insurance company. They are off the hook.
Co-worker was clocked in at the time of the accident so workers compensation picked up her med bills. The Dead Man Driving was found not at fault, legally.
Could someone further explain the legal grounds for such a ruling???
Free, I believe (IIRC) that California is a no-fault state. While I know little about how that system works, I think it would lead to coverage in such a situation. As for your earlier comments about the insured being somehow cheated out of coverage in the dead-man situation, I don’t follow. It’s the third party liabilty claims that are being denied here, on the basis that the insured was not negligent. That’s a good result for the insured. Or are you assuming that the insured would have to pay the third party claims himself? If you are, that’s not correct.
Whuck, I believe (IIRC) that Wisconsin is not a no-fault state, which would lead to the result in favor of the dead driver that you state. See my prior response on how negligence law works. Or is your question about the Workers’ Comp issue? Let me know what part needs further explanation.