The act of deciding who should be found at-fault for a given accident really comes down to determining who was careless. If 2 people have been careless, then that act consists of determining who was less careful.
Questions asked during a determination of who should be found at-fault
Was the injured person at spot where he or she was supposed to be? Society has teams that rescue people. Yet that does not mean that the same team does not expect to be compensated for its actions. Sometimes, people become endangered when they fail to remain in a safe location, and venture into a dangerous area.
In the same way, society provides the courts with the ability to decide whether or not an injured plaintiff had ventured into a dangerous area. If the court rules that the plaintiff did carry out such an action, then anyone that unintentionally hurt the same foolhardy plaintiff could not be held responsible for the resulting injuries.
Was the negligent person following orders from a superior? If an employee gets into an accident while following the orders from a supervisor, then the supervisor becomes responsible for any injuries.
Did the accident result from the condition of the spot where the accident took place? Had the owner of that location failed to take proper care of that particular spot? In that case, the owner of that property or building would become responsible for any injuries.
Was the injured party using a defective product? If the answer to that question was “yes,” than the maker of that product would want proof that the user injured party had chosen to use the product according to the directions provided on the packaging, or possibly online. If the user had followed the directions, then the maker of the product could be held liable for any injuries to the user.
What happens when more than one person causes a given accident?
In this case, the legal system does not ask the injured victim to file a claim with the insurance company for each person that helped to cause the accident. Instead, the victim files a claim with just one insurance company. That same company must then pay the compensation that is due the injured claimant, as per personal injury lawyer in Medicine Hat.
Still, that does not mean that one insurance company must bear the entire burden of compensating the injured claimant. Instead, each company that has sold an insurance policy to one of the other people that caused the accident’s occurrence needs to reimburse the company that paid the expected compensation. Ideally, the different companies can agree among themselves how to reimburse the company that paid the compensation. If they cannot, then they must meet each other in court.