SIGforum.com Main Page The Lounge Car owner who left Jeep at dealership gets sued after worker dies during oil change
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Member |
There's some crazy shit going on in this inane world, but this has to land in the top 10. What the actual f***, over????  "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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A Grateful American |
You mean people with law degrees in executive and Legislative positions? "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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| The Ice Cream Man |
Sue the owner under negligent entrust meant to have him sue the dealership? | |||
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| The Ice Cream Man |
One thing for certain, is that lawyers will be getting paid… | |||
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Member |
You really think John Morgan got his 25k square foot home and his son bought the most expensive home in Winter Park Florida because they really care "About the People".  ----------------------------- Guns are awesome because they shoot solid lead freedom. Every man should have several guns. And several dogs, because a man with a cat is a woman. Kurt Schlichter | |||
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| Official forum SIG Pro enthusiast  |
This is why automatic transmissions suck. Not only do they rob you of the joy of driving a fun vehicle but they eventually cause people to exist who cannot drive stick and then society looks even more like a circus. Bring back the manuals. Ban Semi and fully automatic transmissions! If we can save even one life (from years of driving a sports car with an automatic) it’s worth it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The price of liberty and even of common humanity is eternal vigilance | |||
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| Ammoholic |
Yes. While you quoted the first sentence, perhaps you missed the last two: “Perhaps the fault lies with the legislators who created the laws. Of course many of them are or were lawyers, so… ” | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine  |
Wouldn't it also save these same lives to mandate only automatic transmissions? The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| would not care to elaborate  |
This guy doesn't have a clue, and pretty much admits that in the vid. I know the attorney/news guy referred to, he actually has a distant history of handling work comp claims, he'a another story altogether. The Michigan work comp law does create immunity for the employer. As a trade off, an injured employee can still collect comp for a qualifying injury, even if the injury was caused by the employee's own stupidity or negligence. Regardless, the comp law does provide benefits to a dependent spouse and minor children of the deceased employee, so they aren't out in the cold, plus there would be Social Security survivor benefits. What would be interesting to know is which carrier hired the defense lawyer, the homeowner's or auto, I'm guessing the latter. The other legal wrinkle is the indemnification claim against dealership, allegedly in favor of the owner of the auto. Not sure if that is actually in stone or on appeal. If still on appeal there should be some settlement wiggle room for the underlying suit. | |||
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| Official forum SIG Pro enthusiast |
JHE888, I was hoping no one would see the gaping hole in my argument. In all seriousness, I once had the perpetual misfortune of owning a Mustang 5.0 with a soul crushing and eternally disappointing automatic. One of my coworkers had my exact same car with a 5 speed manual. I talked him into swapping cars and drag racing in the loading area behind our employer. Beating my car in a race felt weird but what really struck me was when I realized just how much joy that automatic had robbed from my life. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The price of liberty and even of common humanity is eternal vigilance | |||
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Member |
So if the owner is indemnified, does he just roll over in the case and limit his legal bills? Or do the dealership's lawyers have to defend the owner? Hedley Lamarr: Wait, wait, wait. I'm unarmed. Bart: Alright, we'll settle this like men, with our fists. Hedley Lamarr: Sorry, I just remembered . . . I am armed. | |||
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| Ammoholic |
Disagree. I own a ranch and have various heavy equipment (and chainsaws). My two employees are only allowed to operate some of that equipment and only after I have satisfied myself that they can do so competently. Were I to simply turn them loose on everything and tell them to have fun and one of them screwed up operating a piece of equipment he had no training or clue how to operate, I would absolutely be liable. The dealership should be liable for putting an employee (of any age) with no driver’s license and no clue how to drive an manual in that position. If you are going to employ someone you are responsible for supervising them, and if necessary, training them. ETA: if the indemnification verdict sticks, the dealership will be held responsible. | |||
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| Page late and a dollar short |
No. Because someone will still do something stupid. I was the parts manager of a car dealership a long time ago. Got myself in hot water with the dealership owner as he would assign his pet lot boy to clean around the building and use an unlicensed pickup truck for that work. Only problems were that the lot boy did not have a license and that he would take it off the lot and use it as his personal demonstrator. The keys were kept in the parts department long before I was hired. Once I found out these details I went to the owner. He felt it was no big deal. So after a couple of weeks of his promising to do something and nothing being done I presented the dealer with the keys telling him that I was no longer going to allow a unlicensed driver access to a company vehicle and if he wanted to it was now his responsibility. -------------------------------------—————— ————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman) | |||
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| would not care to elaborate |
The owner has no legal fees/costs up to the limit of his policy. If wealthy, he could hire private counsel to protect his interests for an award in excess of that. Not common, but if he has an umbrella that carrier would hire counsel. I don't know the status of the indemnity issue, could be on hold pending the outcome of trial, nor do I know the issues at trial. Safe to say that it is not likely a true indemnitor/carrier for the dealership would sit back and say, "let us know if we have to pay anything". | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
Yes, most indemnification agreements come with the duty to defend, but I don't know what the statute requires. Once they are required to indemnify, though, the dealership has the economic interest to beat the plaintiff's claims. It is the car owner who doesn't really care any more. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Member |
I understand the negative reaction to this situation and the lawyer who is facilitating it, but there are a couple of points that members should be aware of: 1. In most states there are two people responsible for every car accident - the owner and the driver. A car (among many other things, notably including a firearm) is considered a "dangerous instrument" and the owner is liable for the negligence of people he lets use it. Is this fair/just/reasonable? That's up for debate, but it's been the law in most of the US for a very long time and until that changes you should keep it in mind when you let someone else drive your car or boat, shoot your gun, borrow your bulldozer, etc. because you are most likely responsible for any damage they cause. 2. The dead worker's family can't sue the employer or the at-fault employee due to workers' compensation immunity. They can sue the owner under the theory above, BUT the owner has the right to indemnity from the dealership. Indemnity is a legal doctrine that lets a technically liable but otherwise innocent person (the owner) pass their liability on to the culpable person (the dealership). It's a roundabout way of doing it, but unless you think the dealership should not have any liability it all works out in the end. | |||
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Member |
I don’t know that I agree with that. I’ve at least had to show my driver license or a scan of it or whatever to literally every employer that I’ve ever had since after my first part time job at 14 which obviously didn’t require it. To ensure that the employee didn’t at least have a driver license is supremely negligent in my opinion. Especially for a job as an auto mechanic. I don’t know if it rises to gross negligence but I also say that it’s pretty damn dumb to not at least ask any potential mechanic hired if they can drive stick. “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
This is emphatically not true. I have not researched the law in every state, but I am quite confident in my blanket statement. One can be liable if one negligently entrusts the instrumentality used to cause harm, but only if that entrustment was negligent as a separate matter. Example: I let my sister borrow my car. She is a sober, safe driver, who has not been in an accident in years, and I know it. She then hits someone while driving the car. I am not likely to be liable for her negligence. Example 2: I lend my car to my drug addict friend, who has 20 speeding tickets in the last year, and who has been in three accidents in the last two years. I know all of that. I could be liable for lending her the car because it is independently negligent to give that particular person a car. This goes for cars, guns, boats, hammers, anything, really - if the mechanism of harm is within reasonable contemplation. What you describe would be a form of strict liability. Strict liability is not common, and in fact, the opposite is true. It is rare. This is not a situation where it applies. What you said is wrong. Repeating it perpetuates that mistaken belief, which many people do have. I hear it commonly, even though it is not true. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Member |
It most definitely is the law in Florida, Michigan, and two (maybe three, my recall isn’t perfect) other states where I’ve defended cases brought under the dangerous instrumentality doctrine. I did about 30 minutes of searching in Westlaw before posting and several sources (practical law, AmJur) described this as the majority rule. It’s not strict liability because the injury to the plaintiff still has to be the result of negligence - it’s more like joint and several liability on the defendants’ side. Under your example one above, you and your sister would be jointly and severally liable as a matter of law in Florida and many other states if your sister was negligent. You providing her with access to a dangerous instrument, which she used to cause harm, is all the culpability the law requires. I”m sure you know what you’re talking about, but I do too. Rather than turning this into two lawyers writing briefs in a public form, let’s do this: I am positive this is the law in some states because I have personally litigated the issue in courts in at least four states, including Florida and Michigan. You are positive it is not in others, presumably for the same reason. My caution to members still stands but I will highlight the fact that it isn’t the case in every state so YMMV. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
Fair enough. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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SIGforum.com Main Page The Lounge Car owner who left Jeep at dealership gets sued after worker dies during oil change
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