NEGLIGENCE

To win an injury case arising out of a car accident you have to prove that the other driver was at-fault.  All you have to show is that they were negligent, meaning that they failed to use ordinary care in their driving or follow the “rules of the road.”  In some situations, this is fairly easy to do, especially the rear-end collision.  There are very few situations where a driver rear-ends the vehicle in front of him, and that the rear-ending driver is not at fault.

However, the law in Virginia says that the mere happening of an accident does not mean that anyone was at fault.  There can be situations where the potentially negligent driver is able to show that his actions were reasonable and that something other than his carelessness caused the accident.  For example, if the defendant (the at-fault driver) can show that he was faced with a sudden emergency situation, like his unexpectedly blacking out, that he could not have known about in advance or prevented, then he might get out of paying.  Therefore, your attorney will need to be able to prove the liability of the person who caused the accident.

Sometimes an accident can be caused by more than one driver who is at-fault.  If you are a driver and your negligence contributed to the accident in part, then you may not recover against the other driver for the injuries that you suffered, even if the other driver was more at fault than you.  This is called the law of Contributory Negligence.  Virginia is one of only a small number of states which keeps this old English law, which is really unfair.