My friend&#39;s dog attacked my car on their property. Who will be responsible for damages? I went to my friends house. The dog was nice when i got there. When i left, the dog decided to attack my car and he bit the rear end of the vehicle. Who will be responsible for the damages? My insurance or theirs?
The ultimate legal liability for the damage is probably theirs, although the jurisdiction where this happened would impact the result in principle. Your car insurance may or may not cover third party damage to your car, depending upon what your insurance policy says, probably with a deductible. But, your car insurance would have a right to subrogation which means a right to sue the person who is legally liable for what the insurance company paid, even if it does cover the law. The homeowner's or renter's insurance policy of the homeowner with the dog would be responsible for paying damages and hiring a lawyer for the dog owner if the dog owner was sued, but you might have to sue the homeowner to invoke his insurance policy if it refused to pay upon receiving a demand letter.
According to the article, the driver ran over the ducklings intentionally, when other drivers had already stopped. From the article: &quot;Police urged animal lovers not to take &quot;matters in your own hands&quot; following the incident.&quot;. So the main consequences might not be legal consequences but non-legal consequences. Before you run into animals on the road, you make sure that you stay within the speed limit, that you have unobstructed view, and that you keep your eyes on the road. If there's a dog in the road, there could have been a young child as well. So having a situation where you can't stop safely is very bad. There are lots of people with expensive animals. A dog could easily be £2,000 and there are Frenchies that cost £30,000. Something to consider, so make sure your third party liability insurance is fine. And remember there might be consequences outside the law.
Bearing in mind that you are legally required to have liability insurance in Wisconsin (or a surety bond), and the reason for that is so that people can know with reasonable certainty (and not just hope) that if someone plows into them the guy at fault will cover the damage, you would expect that insurance policies can't be written so that the insurance company can wash their hands of the matter. So per Wisc. Stat 632.32(6)(b) in the liability insurance section of state insurance law, No policy may exclude from the coverage afforded or benefits provided... Any use of the motor vehicle for unlawful purposes, or for transportation of liquor in violation of law, or while the driver is under the influence of an intoxicant ...
Not necessarily. Your own statements and the statements of the officer would be legally sufficient to convict you. Also, your statement that you don't believe you are at fault is strongly at odds with a widely held interpretation of the traffic laws (not stated in the formal language of these statutes). The prevailing interpretation of the traffic laws is that you are always at fault if you rear end someone because you failed to maintain a safe distance, pretty much as a matter of strict liability and regardless of the circumstances, because a safe distance is almost by definition a distance that it is possible for you to come to a full stop from if the care in front of you suddenly comes to a stop for any reason. The only situation I can imagine where there wouldn't be liability for rear ending someone would be if you were at rest behind them at a stop light and they actively backed up into you. In practice, almost any judge and almost any jury, would convict you of failure to maintain a safe distance if you rear ended someone absent the most extraordinary of circumstances. I honestly don't know any lawyer or likely potential juror who wouldn't convict you under these circumstances with only the testimony of the police officer and your own testimony (which you would have to offer to have any shot at avoiding a conviction) to establish that you did indeed rear end someone. Police are allowed to lie to suspects of crimes, and often simply do not have an accurate understanding of how the legal system works. So, you are not entitled to rely on a statement made by a police officer. Of course, it is also certainly possible that his statement is consistent with local practice in your neighborhood traffic court. So, showing up to contest the charge might still make sense, and it wouldn't be uncommon to receive a plea bargain with fewer points against your license, just for showing up to court.
Maybe, Hence the Lawsuits In the absence of clear statute law these all circle around tort law. For the scooter companies, trespass to chattels, and for the affected landowners (who hire the removalists) trespass to land and nuisance seem applicable. In essence, I can’t take your stuff (trespass to chattels) but you can’t leave your stuff on my property (trespass to land) or impeding access to it (nuisance). If you do, I am entitled to the reasonable costs of dealing with it. Note that, as owner, you remain responsible for you stuff even if you rented it to someone else. Both sides are pushing hard into unexplored areas of law so we await the judgement with interest. Then we’ll know.
I'm not sure there would be any need - or any ability to bring - any civil action. Forgery would appear to count as a Category D felony under Section 205.090 and, "In addition to any other penalty, the court shall order the person to pay restitution.", so person "a"'s damages should have been met under the process of the criminal prosecution of person "b" for forgery, with nothing further to claim. Person "c" will have stolen a car. Whether that car was legitimately owned by person "a" may only be relevant if person "c" is using their belief that it belonged to person "b" as mitigation (for example recovery of a debt - though it won't help much as this should have been done through proper channels), which again would be a criminal proceeding.
You have acknowledged that the house was in "new" condition, which establishes a baseline for determining if the present state is normal wear and tear. The lease and California law agree that normal wear and tear is not the responsibility of the tenant. You may then need to sue the landlord in small claims court to get the remainder of the deposit (the above guide will be useful). The thing that is not clear is exactly what constitutes "normal wear and tear". The state guide tends to emphasize extreme forms of damage such as dogs chewing the woodwork, or cigarette burns. If you do ordinary cleaning on the walls, windows, carpets etc. then it is more likely that the judge will find in your favor.
The vehicle occupying the lane has right of way i.e. if you merge and cause a collision, you are liable. The fact that the other driver was in breach of the road rules as well as you is immaterial. If you rephrased the question to be "A vehicle behind you in that lane is exceeding the speed limit - can I exceed the speed limit too?" you would see why. "Because they were breaking the law I should be allowed to" is not a defence that has any prospect of being successful. The law says you must give way when merging, so give way when merging.