Car owner gets sued after lube tech kills mechanic with his car at dealership

If i was the vehicle owner, i would also sue the shop, for another vehicle. Do you want to drive a vehicle everyday that you knew was part of another persons death?
Excellent, excellent point and I agree. I didn’t even think of that, I bet he would win if he didn’t already.

This is why we live in a free country and just because somebody thinks a person shouldn’t sue over something doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
That is why we have a court system.
 
The person who died is already covered by workers compensation and family will be compensated.
The attorney is now going to make the vehicles insurance company pay.
It will be an interesting outcome but I strongly suspect the owners insurance company will be paying.
This is why you carry insurance, you don’t have to do anything your insurance company handles it all.

Someone can trip and fall on my property today at no fault of my own break their leg or become incapacitated and they will sue me I will do nothing more than make a phone call to the insurance company and they will handle everything.

Smart attorneys also know even if they can’t win a case and insurance company will settle rather than have the expensive of court and unknown outcome.

I didn’t know insurance companies were so lived in BITOG. This is the insurance company job and what you pay them for.

I hope the owners insurance doesn’t pay. I don’t want the deceased’s family to be under- compensated, but an inanimate object that I own but cannot operate for whatever reason, shouldn’t cost me for other’s liability. If I securely park, or specifically hand over the vehicle in good faith and trust that it is being repaired, I can’t create a liability situation where it is in use. I’m not using it. The fact that someone else could is nothing more than an excuse for theft by insurance companies. This is a fringe situation, but car insurance companies are happy to charge hundreds of dollars or more per year for these sorts of things.
 
This really makes me want to draft an indemnity agreement that must be signed by the dealership before I will hand them the keys to work on my car. SMH at what the world, and this country's legal system has become. We need Tort Reform 2.0 to become a thing.
 
I hope the owners insurance doesn’t pay. I don’t want the deceased’s family to be under- compensated, but an inanimate object that I own but cannot operate for whatever reason, shouldn’t cost me for other’s liability. If I securely park, or specifically hand over the vehicle in good faith and trust that it is being repaired, I can’t create a liability situation where it is in use. I’m not using it. The fact that someone else could is nothing more than an excuse for theft by insurance companies. This is a fringe situation, but car insurance companies are happy to charge hundreds of dollars or more per year for these sorts of things.
If they are taken to court I am almost 100% sure they will pay, if even to stay out of court but I suspect we will never know... ?
I would love to know the outcome and full facts of the case which we dont know other than a media story.
 
Workman's comps says an employee (or their principals) cannot sue a fellow employee for damages incurred in the workplace.
Right, but it’s not workman’s comp that allows the owner to be sued, it’s the notion of vicarious liability.

Workman’s comp would pay out regardless. The family is choosing to ALSO sue the vehicle owner.

Even if workman’s comp was not involved, the owner can be sued because of this provision of MI law. Many states have a workman’s comp system to prevent business from being bankrupted by individual claims.

They all do not have vicarious liability assigned to the owner simply because they own a vehicle regardless who was operating.
 
In the lawsuit world this is called "Joint and Several Liability".
"Joint and several liability is a legal term for a responsibility that is shared by two or more parties to a lawsuit. A wronged party may sue any or all of them, and collect the total damages awarded by a court from any or all of them. In such cases, responsibility for the total amount awarded would be shared by all. Failure by any of the parties to pay would increase the obligation of the others. Joint and several liability favors the plaintiff suing for damages because it empowers them to pursue full payment, if necessary, from the party with the deepest pockets if the others named cannot pay."
This is why a plaintiff's attorney will sue everyone in sight. One way or another, the plaintiff and his/her attorney will get their money. This is also why the Jeep's owner is being sued. No doubt Jeep will likely also be sued.
 
The manufacturer of the vehicle is the culprit. If they hadn’t built the vehicle, none of this would have happened. But being in the “Motor City” that probably won’t happen since it wasn’t built by Colt or S&W. All the attorney needs is 1 of the thousands of Liberal Judges and it’s a done deal.
 
Welcome to Michigan. This still exists after the legislature "reformed" our auto insurance a couple of years ago in order to bring rates down, never mind that my auto insurance is now 20% higher.
We also get the privledge of paying "uninsured and underinsured" fees as part of our policy so that we can insulate the carriers from the people that dont buy insurance (illegal in this state)
The insurance lobby owns Lansing, nothing happens in MI without their blessing (and campaign money)
Dont feel too bad for the owners insurance carrier, its their system and they have no one to blame but themselves.
 
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Saw this this AM in my inbox from MT and was left SMDH! Workman's comp "legalities" aside, the unlicensed Driver and the Dealership are clearly both NEGLIGENT here.

That may be "irrelevant" to law, but that just shows how ridiculous and absurd the law is in this case. It's nuts. o_O

I hope the owner's insurance company doesn't pay, but my guess is the insurance company will settle.

If the owner's insurance rates go up or they have to pay one red cent I hope they get it all back in spades from the dealer. That includes any legal fees they incur.
 
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A car can't "kill anybody" unless it's a 1959 Plymouth Fury named Christine.

We all know that the owner of the vehicle bears no fault unless he/she had done some modification or negligent act upon the car that caused it to be an extreme hazard.

But it doesn't matter what we think or logic tells us. It only matters what the wording of the laws are.
 
A car can't "kill anybody" unless it's a 1959 Plymouth Fury named Christine.
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I feel like a driver's license is legally required since they would be moving customer vehicles around.
Not really. You don't need a license if you're just moving vehicles around on a private lot. You just need a license if you're driving on public roads. Regardless if you have a license or not, if you're moving a car around, you should know how to drive it.
 
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