If you or a family member has been involved in an accident with a drunk driver, you are likely seeking drunk driver accident help that will assist in compensate for the injuries that were caused. In the video below, attorney Zach Parry explains who can be held responsible for an injury caused by a drunk driver. The response may surprise you.
Here is the transcript of the video above:
Have you been a victim of drunk driving? I hope not. But our sympathy is with you if you have. We at H & P do not like drunk drivers. We seek to hold them accountable. My name is Zach Parry, and I am going to be talking to you a little bit about who may be held accountable if you are the victim of a drunk driver.
First and foremost, the drunk drivers is obviously responsible. Not only for negligence but negligence per se because the drunk driver is violating the statute designed to protect you, which means you do not have to prove all the elements of negligence. So if your defendant is a drunk driver, the case is that much easier. However, drunk drivers don’t necessarily always carry the best insurance or have assets available to fully compensate you for your injury.
So, there may be others liable. One of the first things people ask is what about the person who serves alcohol. If it’s a bar or restaurant or some other establishment with a liquor license, and they’re serving alcohol to someone they know is already drunk and shouldn’t be driving, can they be held liable? The answer is yes…in other states.
Not in Nevada. Nevada’s Dram Shop law precludes liability against the owners establishments serving alcohol for the damages caused by a drunk driver. Unless they’re serving alcohol to a minor, and that minor later goes and drives while intoxicated and causes injuries to someone else. So for the most part, no, in Nevada we can’t hold them liable. But there are exceptions. There could be other potentially liable parties. For example, and this is relatively untested, but the theories of negligence in Nevada are relatively broad. And there is some precedent in other states to show that if a friend of a drunk driver, for example, knows they’re drunk, has the power to stop them from driving a car, but doesn’t, they could be proved to have breached a duty, the breach of which causes foreseeable harm to you, which is the definition of negligence.
So those are potentially liable parties. For the most part though, you are gonna want to be able to find the drunk driver. If you can’t, you aren’t without hope. There are still two avenues potentially available. The first is your own insurance. If you have what’s called UM or UIM, uninsured or under-insured motorist coverage, that is something that will kick in and provide coverage for you for your injuries if you are injured by someone else who has inadequate coverage.
The second is Nevada’s victims of crime program. There is a program set up by the state of Nevada that has a fund of up to thirty-five thousand dollars available to victims of crimes including drunk drivers. There are certain steps you have to follow through with. An application form, you have to file a police report, you have to be a citizen, at least eighteen years old, etc. But that could be available to you.
So, if you have any questions about what your rights are, or how you can be compensated for your injuries, if you are the victim a drunk driver, give us a call. We’ll walk you through it. And, because we have no sympathy for drunk drivers, and we take great pleasure in holding them accountable, you’ll find a friend in us and someone who will be your ally in this time of crisis.
