Would I be liable for damage caused by a vehicle fault, if a mechanic has told me the fault doesn&#39;t exist? Hypothetical situation: I notice my car's brakes are making funny noises, so I take the car to my mechanic to have it checked out. The mechanic inspects the car and informs me that the noise is caused by a buildup of brake dust, and the brakes themselves are still fully functional. While pulling out of the mechanic's driveway, the brakes fail and I rear-end a Bugatti Veyron. Clearly, the mechanic's evaluation of the brakes was incorrect. Who's responsible for the damage to the million-dollar sports car? (If it's relevant, assume the mechanic has any applicable certifications or licenses, and is not just &quot;someone who's good with cars&quot;.)
The mechanic could be held liable, indeed this attorney explains what you have to prove in exactly this case (not necessarily involving a million dollar car). The mechanic was negligent in diagnosing and repairing the brakes. You then have to prove that you mad the mechanic service the brakes (receipts / invoices). You need an attorney to figure out exactly why the brakes failed – maybe he messed up reassembling the brakes, maybe the brakes were defective (product liability) and he was negligent in detecting the defect – then the manufacturer is also liable, and it becomes an issue of what percentage of blame goes to each person. This doesn't mean that you are off the hook, because you still might have taken action to avoid the collision (emergency brake? steer to the right? how fast were you driving, how close were you following?).
From Rule 170 of the Highway Code: watch out for pedestrians crossing a road into which you are turning. If they have started to cross they have priority, so give way If this was indeed the case, then it suggests that the OP had right of way, and the driver was at fault. In any case, the driver should have indicated before turning.
All torts have to be proved. In 99.99% of cases the proof is by admission of the tortfeaser. That is, they agree to pay damages with or without admission of liability. Where liability is contested, there are never any “slam dunks”. There are strong cases, even very strong cases, but when someone else is deciding the case, there are no certainties. Remember, if your opponent thought they were going to lose, they’d settle. Looking at your examples, it seems that the tort you are thinking of is negligence. In order to establish negligence as a Cause of Action under the law of torts, a plaintiff must prove that the defendant: had a duty to the plaintiff, breached that duty by failing to conform to the required standard of conduct (generally the standard of a reasonable person), the negligent conduct was, in law, the cause of the harm to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff was, in fact, harmed or damaged. Where the issue is not one of evidence, that is, the facts are as you say and are not in dispute, the question is not “what happened”, but “is what happened negligence”. For all the examples, 1, 3, and 4 are probably not in dispute: there was a duty, the conduct caused damage at law and the plaintiff actually suffered harm. The question to be decided is whether the driver failed to conform to the required standard of care. For examples 2 and 3, most courts would conclude they didn’t. For example 1, some courts might decide that the way the driver drove did conform to the required standard and others that they didn’t. The legal argument would not be about “proof”, it would be about the standard the law requires.
As described, this may be a form of illegal bait-and-switch advertising, but not breach of contract. The contract states the specific vehicle to be sold, which does not match the test-driven car. If the dealer had listed the better car's VIN in the contract but supplied a different car, that would be breach of contract. Whether it is illegal advertisement depends on the representations and disclaimers made by the dealer. To the extent that the dealer supplied indications that there was a difference between the test model and the purchase model, or to the extent that the customer should have known that the test car had features not found in the specific model that the customer believed he was buying and paying for, the dealer was being non-deceptive. To the extent that the dealer holds that selling model X instead of model Y is an &quot;honest mistake&quot; on their part, the dealer was being deceptive (or, was plainly in breach of contract). It's hard to see what &quot;honest mistake&quot; the dealer might have made, but perhaps the mistake was &quot;not being clearer to the customer that they had test-driven a fancier model, not the one that they were actually buying&quot;. The customer's attorney could pursue this matter and either get the better car, or get a better financial deal, but it really hinges on who said / wrote what (and has a more believable story about what was said).
If the contractor's advice that delay would be safe was reasonable under the circumstances, and other contractors or skilled professionals would have given similar advice, then the contractor will not be liable just because the advice was incorrect. If the advice was negligent, and fell clearly short of what a skilled professional would advise in the circumstances, then the contractor may have liability for the additional damages. That is the detailed facts will be very important in placing liability. The contractor is not an insurer who assumes all risk, but the contractor is responsible for acting in a reasonable, professional manner.
Yes, the police can give you a ticket for not having insurance/registration in the vehicle, even if they know it is registered/insured. The requirement is not just that you must have it, but you must carry proof of it in the vehicle. California Law (CVC §16058) requires that insurance companies electronically report insurance information to the DMV, which the officer has access to and can verify insurance. From the California DMV Page: Financial responsibility (commonly known as insurance) is required on all vehicles operated or parked on California roadways. You must carry evidence of financial responsibility in your vehicle at all times and it must be provided as specified below when: Requested by law enforcement. Renewing vehicle registration. The vehicle is involved in a traffic collision. The reason it must be in your vehicle is that when you are involved in a collision, you have to be able to provide that to the other party. And yes, you can receive the citation even if the vehicle is not yours. It is your responsibility as a driver to abide by the laws and verify that the vehicle is legal to drive. California Vehicle Code (CVC) §4000(a)(1) requires registration: A person shall not drive, move, or leave standing upon a highway, or in an offstreet public parking facility, any motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, pole or pipe dolly, or logging dolly, unless it is registered and the appropriate fees have been paid under this code or registered under the permanent trailer identification program, except that an off-highway motor vehicle which displays an identification plate or device issued by the department pursuant to Section 38010 may be driven, moved, or left standing in an offstreet public parking facility without being registered or paying registration fees. I'm not advocating that you should just "suck it up and pay" this ticket. I would certainly bring proof of registration/insurance at the time of the ticket to your court date and provide that you are not the registered owner of the vehicle (you don't say, but I assume you were borrowing a friends vehicle). The court should look at that evidence and issue a warning or dismiss the ticket.
The question asks for analysis of a specific accident, and I'll leave that to other answers. This answer is focused on conceptual misunderstandings in the question itself. Where does fault lie in the following situation; and what tickets if any should be issued according to Illinois Motor Vehicle Code and why? Again who is at fault or what %'s of fault should be applied and why? Lawsuits v. Traffic Citations It is important to understand that whether tickets could be issued according to the Illinois Motor Vehicle Code, and legal fault in a lawsuit arising from an accident involving a motor vehicle are two very different legal concepts. Also, there isn't necessarily only one person at fault or only one person who has violated the Motor Vehicle Code. Motor Vehicle Code Violations Violations of the Motor Vehicle Code are analyzed one by one in a criminal or quasi-criminal traffic court proceeding where the issue is whether a fine or other punishment should be imposed for violating it. One person being cited does not mean that another person can't be cited as well. These proceedings would be brought by the &quot;People of the State of Illinois&quot; against each defendant by a government official at government expense. The government also has no legal obligation to bring charges for every violation that could in theory be legally supported by the facts. The outcome of the traffic court proceedings would be inadmissible evidence in a lawsuit arising out of the accident. Usually the police report will also be inadmissible evidence unless the police officer who wrote it is brought into court to testify in support of it, or the parties stipulate otherwise. Civil Liability In A Lawsuit In a lawsuit, brought by the private lawyer for a person who has suffered damages from the accident (called a &quot;plaintiff&quot;) must show that someone else was negligent, which means that they failed to act with reasonable care under the circumstances to prevent harm to others, that this caused their damages, and must prove their damages. Private lawyers for the defendants whom the Plaintiff seeks to assign fault to are usually paid for by the defendants' insurance companies and argue against their clients having liability. A jury hears all of the evidence and assigns a percentage of fault to each party including the plaintiff. If the person injured is found by a jury to be at least 50% at fault, then there is no recovery. If the person injured is found to be less than 50% at fault, then the other parties at fault have legal liability to the plaintiff based upon their percentage of fault. See 735 ILCS 5/2-1116. Negligence in a lawsuit doesn't necessarily have to involve a violation of the Motor Vehicle Code. A jury can find, for example, that someone was driving too fast for the conditions despite not violating the speed limit, or stopped too abruptly, even if those aren't Motor Vehicle Code violations and can find a percentage of fault based upon that conduct. A violation of the Motor Vehicle Code does not automatically translate to fault either. Violations of the Motor Vehicle Code are a basis for a finding of fault, in what is called negligence per se, if the code section violated was intended to prevent the kind of accident that actually happened. Failure to use a turn signal, for example, will rarely constitute negligence per se in an accident where one car rear ends another car. There are very simple cases where one can truly state with absolutely certainty that only one party is at fault for purposes of a negligence lawsuit. For example, comparative fault is hard to argue in a case where a garbage truck hits and damages a building while the driver isn't paying attention and the building owner sues the garbage truck driver and his employer, although even then the issue of what damages should be awarded can be litigated. (Full disclosure: I litigated this case for a building owner until it had to be transferred to new counsel due to a merger of my law firm with another law firm that represented the other side in the case.) But usually (at least in cases that go to trial) there is at least some colorable argument that more than one person involved failed to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances and if so, the jury must allocate fault percentages on a basis that it feels best allocates responsibility for the harm caused to a particular plaintiff by the accident as it sees fit in their good judgment using common sense. And, this allocation of percentage fault is almost impossible to overturn on appeal if there is any argument based upon any evidence introduced at trial that the people to whom fault were allocated indeed not totally without fault. It is impossible to say, as a matter of law, what percentage of fault should be assigned to each at fault party when more than one party is potentially at fault. This is question purely for the finder of fact (usually a jury, but the judge in a bench trial).
Suppose the shop bills you $2000 and you have a $750 deductible. You pay them $750, your insurance company pays $1250. Now suppose instead that the shop purports to waive the deductible. In order to get the insurance company to pay $1250 they still have to bill $2000. Then they don't collect the $750 from you. Presumably they write it off as bad debt. It smells like insurance fraud to me, on two counts: first, the shop expects to receive $1250 for a service but they produce a bill of $2000 for the insurance company's benefit and then do not seek payment from the insured party for any balance purportedly due beyond $1250. Second, the insured party has a contract with the insurer undertaking to pay the first $750 of the claim but has conspired with the shop to avoid paying that amount through deception. Had the shop played by the rules, they would have billed $1250 and the insurer would have paid $500. The shop isn't waiving your deductible; it's getting it out of the insurance company by fraud, with your collusion. Another way of handling this is that the auto body shop submits an estimate for the cost necessary to restore the car to a certain degree but then restores the car to a lesser degree. If everyone is aware that this is happening then it might be acceptable, depending on the terms of the insurance policy.