What Is The Civil Liability For Defendants In DUI Injury Lawsuit?

Sometimes the defendant in a personal injury case must face an additional problem, even after recovering from any accident-related injuries. That added problem could arise, if the same defendant had been found guilty of DUI. In that case, the defendants’ past behavior could make him or her the target of a civil lawsuit.

Each state has its own statute of limitations

Some states allow plaintiffs as much as five years before the deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit. That means that the lawsuit’s target (the defendant) could be a policyholder that had been responsible for a car crash. That policyholder might have believed that the insurance company had taken care of the situation to the satisfaction of the injured victim.

How the lawsuit process starts?

After the plaintiff has filed the complaint, the same complaint gets served to the complaint’s target (the defendant). The court that has filed the complaint has also set a deadline for receipt of a response from the person that was served with that same notice. Smart defendants issue a quick response, in order to avoid missing the deadline. A defendant’s failure to meet the deadline could lead to a win for the plaintiff.
Smart defendants also contact their insurance company as soon as possible.

Why some defendants might consider paying for an additional attorney?

A policyholder that has been sued by an accident victim normally enjoys access to legal counsel, which has been paid for by the insurance company. Still, that legal counsel might not be prepared to deal with all of the challenges that could be facing the target of the civil action.

Any injury lawyers in London working for an insurance company should realize that their client might not be the only person at fault for the crash that caused the plaintiff’s injury. Consequently, those lawyers’ efforts could be focused on that possible defense.

Still, there would remain the chance that the judge might consider adding to the defendant’s financial burden by ruling in favor of the imposition of punitive damages. In that situation, the need for an attorney with a different set of experiences would become obvious.

Some lawyers have become experts at working to reduce the financial burden on someone that has harmed another driver, while DUI. That would be the type of legal expert that could be of benefit to someone that has suddenly become the target of a civil lawsuit.

By working together, that same legal expert and the insurance company’s attorney should be able to limit the amount of money that the policyholder/defendant gets asked to pay. Naturally, both of them could also reinforce the court’s message, namely that the error that caused the crash should not be repeated.