Augusta GA Accident Attorney – House aims to help the injured win suits
BY BENJAMIN NIOLET, Staff Writer
RALEIGH – A decades-long effort to make a sweeping and far-reaching change in how the state’s courts consider lawsuits found some success this week.
The House passed a bill that could affect whether someone hurt in an accident can recover damages. Opponents say the law also could drive up insurance rates across the state.
Since 1985, lawmakers have filed seven similar bills; none has made it out of a chamber. It was unclear this week what chances the bill would have in the Senate, which is considered friendlier to business than the House.
The bill would eliminate a doctrine that says a person who contributes, however slightly, to his or her injury cannot collect a dime from others whose negligence caused the personal injury. North Carolina is one of four states that still operate under the doctrine, which is known to lawyers as “contributory negligence.” The bill would change the state to a scheme known as “contributory fault,” in which juries would award damages based on the relative fault in an accident.
Simply put, if a defendant is found to be 70 percent responsible for an accident, he would be ordered to pay 70 percent of the damages awarded by a jury.
“This bill is really a bill about simple justice, which is what is supposed to be the goal of the law in this country,” said Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican and bill co-sponsor.
Opponents said the bill would allow people who caused their own injury to blame it on someone else. “It does something for another class of citizens that is particularly needy and neglected, and that’s the trial lawyers,” said Johnathan Rhyne Jr., a Lincolnton Republican.
The House voted 73 to 42 to send the bill to the Senate.
Auto insurance rates tend to be higher in states that have adopted such negligence laws, said Jennifer Cohen, executive director of the Insurance Federation of North Carolina. The law would lead to more payouts, which would require insurance companies to eventually raise rates, she said.
“We need to do this with our eyes wide open,” Cohen said.
The bill also would strike a legal doctrine that has been a headache for businesses. Under the state’s current law, if multiple defendants are found to have caused an accident, a plaintiff can recover some or all of the damages from any of the parties. The result: Even if a big business is less responsible than another defendant, the plaintiff can collect the entire award from only the rich company.
The bill would establish that each party pays based on the degree of fault. That component is meant to appeal to businesses.
“This is not our ideal plan or a trial lawyers’ bill,” said Burton Craige, legal affairs counsel for the N.C. Advocates for Justice. “Every scholar and commentator has said that these principles go together.”
Most people have never heard of the tort doctrine or what it means. Pat Gates learned about it in 2003, the day after she and her husband buried their son, Stephen Gates.
Gates, then 27, was a Tar Heel Sports Network reporter who had a flat one night in October 2003 on Interstate 40. He pulled his car over. The left tire was a few inches into the road. As he got out, he was struck, dragged and killed by an SUV.
Investigators said the SUV, which left the scene, had room to avoid the car and time to stop. Because Gates parked his car just over the line, the insurance companies representing the SUV’s occupants decided Gates contributed to the accident.
A painful phone call
“They called us the day after the funeral, when we were just completely broken and at the lowest possible point you could be in your life, and told us that in the state of North Carolina it wasn’t necessary for them to pay the liability insurance of their client,” Pat Gates said. “It’s like somebody telling you that your treasured son is a worthless human being.”
The insurance companies settled the case on the eve of a trial. Had a judge or jury found Stephen Gates even 1 percent negligent, his family would have received nothing.
Gates’ parents successfully pushed to have the state’s hit-and-run law strengthened in the wake of his death. And they have been pushing for a change in the tort law since 2004.
The fact that the bills have failed many times before proves the change isn’t necessary or wanted, opponents said.
“This House has turned it back every time,” said Rep. Jim Crawford, an Oxford Democrat.
But states such as Mississippi began adopting the “contributory fault” doctrine 100 years ago, said Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat and co-sponsor. “I go around to an awful lot of places and talk about the fact that we don’t want to be like Mississippi, and in this case we do want to be like Mississippi. We want to actually catch up to last century’s Mississippi tort law.”
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