Let’s examine the easiest possible scenario- a case where the duty issue seems as straight-forward and uncomplicated as can be. Imagine a truck is driving down the highway and dangerously changes lanes without looking, causing an accident. It seems pretty obvious that the truck driver violated his duty to change lanes safely in order to avoid causing an accident. the fact that there is a law detailing this very duty seems like it should make it simple to prove this element of a negligence case.

However, in cases dealing with safety statutes, first the victim in this case must proved that they belong to the class of people that the safety statute is intended to protect, then they must prove that the safety statute was created to prevent the exact type of injury the victim suffered.

Therefore, in this case, the victim must prove to the court that the safety statute requiring truck drivers to change lanes safely was intended to protect all drivers on the highway driving in the lanes adjacent to a large truck. Then, the plaintiff must prove that the objective of the law was to protect against the possibility that a truck driver on a multi-lane highway would enter the adjacent lane without due regard for the other cars and trucks already driving lawfully in that lane.

While this may sound simple, if the lawsuit doesn’t proceed in exactly this way and spell out each of these factors, the defendant will win. For this reason, even in what seems like the easiest of cases, it is imperative that an accident victim contact an attorney.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 14th, 2007 at 3:09 pm and is filed under Large Commercial Trucking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.