South Dakota Supreme Court Changes Rear End Accident Liability

[proudNMAmember]

South Dakota Supreme Court Changes Rear End Accident Liability
It is a well-established belief that when a rear end collision occurs, the driver of the automobile that is struck is never at fault. Last week, the South Dakota Supreme Court questioned this common wisdom in upholding a jury verdict that had found Carla Jean Hall not responsible for striking from behind the vehicle of Abdelaziz Baddou on January 21, 2004. On that day, Baddou had signaled and stopped on a two-lane road in Rapid City while waiting for traffic to clear so he could make a legal left-hand turn. Hall claimed to have been following behind one car length's distance from Baddou at about 25 MPH. Hall claimed that just before the impact she had momentarily glanced left to ensure the children on the sidewalk were not running in the middle of the street. When her attention refocused on the road ahead, she noticed Baddou's car had stopped. Hall applied the brakes and swerved, but this was not enough to prevent her car from slamming into Baddou's right rear bumper. After considering the evidence, a jury sided with Hall and found she had not been negligent. Baddou appealed, insisting the jury's finding should be thrown out because the driver behind is always at fault in a rear end collision. The state supreme court justices in this instance pointed out that prior rear end collision case law involved the driver of the car behind admitting to some form of negligence -- usually following too closely. In this case, Hall made no such admission. The court stated that an automatic finding of negligence occurs only when a defendant admits to violating some safety law. "Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Hall, as we must, we cannot agree with Baddou's claim that Hall's acts constituted such obvious negligence per se as to justify taking the case away from the jury," Judge Mark Barnett wrote for the unanimous court. The court found that it was the job of the jury to sort out whether the defendant's claims were reasonable or credible. "Reasonable minds may differ, but we must resolve doubts in favor of the jury verdict," Barnett wrote. "We, therefore, continue to decline to adopt a strict rule or presumption of negligence in cases involving rear end collisions." A copy of the ruling is available in a 170k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Baddou v. Hall (Supreme Court of South Dakota, 9/17/2008)

[Lucky225]

While I agree that the person to the rear may not ALWAYS be at fault (i.e. break lights just 'happen' to fail right before the impact, OR driver used a kill switch to MAKE them fail to do some insurance fraud.) I think an inattentive driver, as she was, "momentarily" glancing (by her words to make sure some children weren't in the street, YEA RIGHT!) instead of keeping your eyes on the road is inattentive and she should be held accountable. For 1, obviously the car in front of her was MAKING sure there weren't kids, as he was turning and if there were kids, he correctly hit the breaks, where HER attention should have been focused. She should have been 'glancing for kids' when it was HER turn to make a turn.

[Maestro]

Notice what the court said, in all previous case the driver in the car that hit the other car admitted to wrong doing, in this case this women did no such thing. Again it just another example of people convicting themselves.

My wife was in accident once, which was her fault initially, but because of actions taken by the other driver the accident was a lot worse. She cross the yellow line going around a bend instead of the guy going off his side of road to avoid her he went into her lane thinking she would continue into his lane which she did not. When she returned to her lane she ended up driving up over the hood of his car and down the passenger side wiping out his car. The police came of course and they try to get her to admit it was her fault and she call me on the cell at which time told her to keep her mouth shut which she did.

Later I tried arguing with the insurance company the other guy was at fault due to the fact he was hit on her side of the road not his side. Well PA law is such that the person who initiated the events that lead to the accident is at fault no matter if the other driver failed to do the proper thing. This is because of the stupid no fault laws. They attempt to say she admitted crossing the yellow line which was not true it was a statement the other guy made.

[Lucky225]

Notice what the court said, in all previous case the driver in the car that hit the other car admitted to wrong doing, in this case this women did not such thing. Again it just another example of people convicting themselves.

My wife was in accident once, which was her fault initially, but because of actions taken by the other driver the accident was a lot worse. She cross the yellow line going around a bend instead of the guy going off his side of road to avoid her he went into her lane thinking she would continue into his lane which she did not. When she returned to her lane she ended up driving up over the hood of his car and down the passenger side wiping out his car. The police came of course and they try to get her to admit it was her fault and she call me on the cell at which time told her to keep her mouth shut which she did.

Later I tried arguing with the insurance company the other guy was at fault due to the fact he was hit on her side of the road not his side. Well PA law is such that the person who initiated the events that lead to the accident is at fault no matter if the other driver failed to do the proper thing. This is because of the stupid no fault laws. They attempt to say she admitted crossing the yellow line which was not true it was a statement the other guy made.

Yea insurance and accidents tick me off, it's one of my pet peaves about driving. When I was 18, me and my friend used to race to the nearby AM-PM every day at lunch time (we worked at the same factory). One day, I was in the right lane, he in the left, and we were hauling down this street at 50mph or so. It is an industrial street, and just a shortcut to the ampm. So anyways, he's in a Caprice, me in my old S-10. He turns a WIDE-RIGHT, out of no where and WITHOUT warning, reason or cause (considering he turned into a industrial complex that he had no reason to be going to and doesn't lead out to the public street or anything) Because he made a wide right turn in front of me, and we were racing, I did not have time to slow down, and his rear-passenger quarterpanel CLIPPED my Front-Driver side because of HIS WIDE TURN. He had no insuarnce. He called my insurance company and filed a claim AGAINST ME, and they found me "51% AT-FAULT" for "traveling to closely behind him". That F*cked up my insurance for a long time.

[Maestro]

Yea insurance and accidents tick me off, it's one of my pet peaves about driving. When I was 18, me and my friend used to race to the nearby AM-PM every day at lunch time (we worked at the same factory). One day, I was in the right lane, he in the left, and we were hauling down this street at 50mph or so. It is an industrial street, and just a shortcut to the ampm. So anyways, he's in a Caprice, me in my old S-10. He turns a WIDE-RIGHT, out of no where and WITHOUT warning, reason or cause (considering he turned into a industrial complex that he had no reason to be going to and doesn't lead out to the public street or anything) Because he made a wide right turn in front of me, and we were racing, I did not have time to slow down, and his rear-passenger quarterpanel CLIPPED my Front-Driver side because of HIS WIDE TURN. He had no insuarnce. He called my insurance company and filed a claim AGAINST ME, and they found me "51% AT-FAULT" for "traveling to closely behind him". That F*cked up my insurance for a long time.

You must have been in CA when that happen since they have assigned fault there. I wish PA had that since that guy really screwed up going into her lane, if he just went to his right then she would not have hit him and neither of them would have had damage.

[Lucky225]

You must have been in CA when that happen since they have assigned fault there. I wish PA had that since that guy really screwed up going into her lane, if he just went to his right then she would not have hit him and neither of them would have had damage.

I was in CA, and it's B.S.

[REBinc]

Person in reverse trumps hitting someone from behind, that one happened to me.

[Maestro]

I was in CA, and it's B.S.

I think your just upset your friend beat you to the ampm...

[MEM-TEK]

The way I see it, Hall was negligent because she should have considered the possibility that Baddou might stop at the intersection in order to make a left turn. I also consider Hall following at only one car length behind Baddou while driving at 25mph to be following a bit too closely. If Baddou locked up his brakes to avoid a child then certainly Hall would have not have had enough reaction time given only a 1 car length distance to avoid rear ending Baddou.

This is just another case of someone (Hall) trying to weasel out of their responsibility for their own actions. It is amazing that this case made it all the way to SD's supreme court.