Key Strategies for Fighting Auto Accident Claims

In the personal injury world, auto accident claims are among the most common. That’s not surprising, given that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that there are about six million police-reported traffic crashes per year in the U.S. While most auto accidents are resolved through the parties’ insurance companies, especially severe or complex auto accidents can end up in litigation. Defendants in such cases have a variety of defenses available to them, some of which our North Carolina personal injury defense attorneys explain herein. 

Core Elements of Auto Accident Claims 

Almost all auto accident claims are based on negligence. To prevail on a claim of negligence, the plaintiff must prove four elements: 

• Duty: The defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care. In auto accident claims, that’s generally the duty to operate a vehicle like a reasonably prudent driver would, which includes obeying traffic laws. 
• Breach: The defendant’s act or omission was not in accordance with that duty of care (e.g., speeding, driving while distracted, etc.) 
• Causation: The defendant’s breach was the actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries (i.e., the plaintiff would not have suffered injuries but for the defendant’s breach, and the plaintiff’s injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the breach) 
• Damages: The plaintiff suffered injuries, which in auto accident cases can be both physical and financial 

Failure to prove even one of those four elements will doom an auto accident claim. As such, one of the most common defense strategies in auto accident cases is to show that the plaintiff has not met their burden of proof for one or more of the required elements. 

Defenses to Auto Accident Claims

Poking holes in the plaintiff’s case is merely one arrow in a defendant’s quiver.  Auto accident defendants may also raise one or more affirmative defenses to minimize the risk of liability. Some of the most effective substantive defenses our North Carolina personal injury defense attorneys wield in auto accident claims include: 

Contributory Negligence and Last Clear Chance

Fault in auto accidents is not always black and white. In many cases, the plaintiff was also negligent at the time of the accident. In most states, a plaintiff’s negligence is not a bar to recovery as long as their negligence is less than 50-51% of the total negligence (depending on the state). Plaintiffs in such cases will have their damages awards reduced by the percentage they were found to be negligent. However, North Carolina is not one of those states. North Carolina follows the contributory negligence rule, which holds that any negligence on the plaintiff’s part — even 1% — is a complete and total bar to recovery. While contributory negligence is an attractive defense for obvious reasons, defendants asserting it are subject to the same burden of proof as plaintiffs. 

Even if a defendant succeeds in showing contributory negligence, the plaintiff still has a trick up their sleeve. The last clear chance doctrine allows a plaintiff to recover even if they are found to be contributorily negligent if they can show: 

1. The plaintiff put himself in a position of peril from which he could not escape through reasonable care
2. The defendant knew or should have known of the plaintiff’s position
3. The defendant had the time and ability to avoid the injury 
4. The defendant negligently failed to do so 

Defendants who plan to argue contributory negligence should thus plan for a last clear chance rebuttal and prepare evidence to show that no realistic opportunity to avoid the accident existed. 

Sudden Emergency 

Think about this scenario: You’re driving down a country road at night when suddenly a deer wanders into your lane from the nearby brush. Naturally, you swerve to avoid the deer, but in doing so, you strike a car in the adjacent lane. Should you still be on the hook for the plaintiff’s injuries in that case? Under the sudden emergency doctrine, the answer could be no. That doctrine exempts a person from liability who, in a moment of sudden emergency, makes a decision that a reasonable and prudent person would make under the same or similar circumstances, such as swerving to avoid hitting a deer. The key limitation on that defense, however, is that the emergency must not be one of the defendant’s making, nor can the defendant contribute to the emergency in any way. 

Pre-Existing Condition 

A recurring battleground between plaintiffs and defendants is whether the defendant truly caused the plaintiff’s injuries or merely aggravated a pre-existing condition. Generally, pre-existing conditions do not bar plaintiffs from recovering damages from defendants, but defendants are liable only to the extent that their negligence aggravated the pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, many plaintiffs attempt to recover much more than that, which often requires complex assessments of medical evidence to determine exactly how much the defendant aggravated the pre-existing condition. Defendants who suspect that a plaintiff may be exaggerating the extent of their injuries due to a pre-existing condition would thus be well-served by working with a North Carolina personal injury defense attorney. 

Statute of Limitations 

The statute of limitations for most personal injury claims in North Carolina, including auto accidents, is three years. Sounds pretty simple, right? Unfortunately, statute of limitations issues can be more complex than they seem. That’s because the statute of limitations does not necessarily begin running once the accident occurs. Rather, it begins running at the time “bodily harm to the claimant…becomes apparent or ought reasonably to have become apparent.” In other words, the three-year statute of limitations might not begin to run until many months after the accident in the case of latent injuries. Auto accident defendants must thus be prepared to argue in such cases that the statute of limitations should have started running earlier, such as by showing that the plaintiff failed to exercise due care in ascertaining their injuries. 

Fight Auto Accident Claims With Help From a North Carolina Personal Injury Defense Attorney

If you’re facing a lawsuit after an auto accident, you will need experienced and competent representation to fight it. To get started, please contact a North Carolina personal injury defense attorney at Harris, Creech, Ward & Blackerby by calling 252-638-6666 or using our online contact form.