http://www.727injury.com (727) 381-2300 St Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas
The topic of this video is what do you do if the other driver lies about what happened? So, unfortunately, I don't know if it's human nature or just sometimes you run into bad paper people after an auto or motorcycle accident. But, um, determining fault is a major issue in a lot of our cases. Now, most of the time, if it's a rear end accident, there's a witness police are called, they can determine fault in that issue is handled appropriately. But I'm talking about the situations where there are no witnesses. So it's simply your word against someone else's. And unfortunately in these types of cases, sometimes we have problems proving liability and it's normally when the other drivers simply lies about what happened. Uh, and I guess maybe you shouldn't be surprised that this happens. Um, you know, people have a hard time accepting responsibility for their wrongful actions because they know, hey, maybe my insurance will go up, maybe I'm going to get sued.
But unless you've run into somebody who's completely honest and says, you know, hand to the sky, yes. Um, that was me. It was my fault. Uh, it is sometimes difficult to prove liability. So I'll give you a couple of examples. I've got a motorcycle case right now where a young man, uh, was driving in the right hand lane car cut right in front of him to make a right hand turn from the center lane, uh, and slammed on its brakes, cut-over, slammed on his brakes, he rear ended rear ended the other car. Well guess what? The other driver says, I was just slowing down and the motorcycle was speeding and, and, and slammed into me and there were no witnesses. So of course the insurance company is saying we're only going to pay 50% of your damages. I have another situation, a park in sometimes these, these, uh, these questions about rear end versus a driving into the other person happened in parking lots.
Same thing. Car backs into my client while she's, um, yeah, APP right after she's gone through a drive through lane, you know, just going through her items car, we're backs right into it. Well, it's an she's sitting there parked, it gets rammed into and hurt. So makes the claim. The other driver says, no, she ran into me again, no witnesses, no video. And so what do you do? At the end of the day, the insurance company says not our fault, you know, too bad. And so when the other driver lies about what happened, you have two choices. You file a lawsuit and you can pursue the case all the way through jury trial or a what is more commonly, and probably the answer that you're not going to like if you're watching this video, is sometimes you have to walk away, just fill out the amount of money that you have through your pip insurance and understand that there's this simple simply no way to prove this case.
And even in the first scenario, if you go to a jury trial, uh, I mean, think about it. It's going to be your word against the other persons with no, no witnesses or any other independent evidence. And so what do you do in that situation? At the end of the day, you have to prove that you're 50 you are right, 51% right? Scales of justice, a greater weight of the evidence has to tip 51% to 49% is the, uh, sort of the layman's term that I use. So it's a very risky proposition. And often a jury will look at that and say, Hey, I, I, maybe I believe both of them, I don't know. And therefore I can't come to a conclusion. Plaintiff, I can't award you your damages. So, uh, unfortunately these situations happen very frequently, specially after automobile accidents, uh, where there are no witnesses, no video, which is why it's important to get into the lawyer quickly so that if there are any witnesses we can run out and try to preserve them, find them, reserve their information again, preserve any type of videos that may exist. But the reality is sometimes the lawyer cannot work miracles. And if you just simply do not have the witnesses to corroborate the fault of the accident, your claim will suffer. And so that, unfortunately, is the reality of the situation when the driver that hit you lies and then you're stuck with the consequences, unfortunately. So hopefully that answers this question about that scenario.
*The above has been transcribed by a third party service and has not been checked for accuracy
Our address:
St Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas
5858 Central Ave suite a
St. Petersburg, FL 33707
St Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas are committed to helping their clients achieve the best possible outcome. If you or a loved one has suffered a personal injury due to someone else’s negligence, don’t hesitate, contact us today at (727) 381-2300. We are open 24/7 and you will be speaking with an attorney.
Looking forward to your call! (727) 381-2300
#personalinjury, #attorney, #saintpetersburg, #stpete, #lawyer
