Injuries Caused by Ejection from Vehicle

Injuries caused by ejection from a vehicle often include broken bones, skull fractures, neck injuries, traumatic brain injury, paralysis, lacerations, loss of limbs, internal bleeding, and organ damage. Many people do not have the savings to address the substantial hospital bills and inability to work that result from these sorts of catastrophic injuries. Often, a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit is the only way to recover sufficient money to pay for the necessary treatment and care. If you are ejected from a vehicle in an accident, you should consult an experienced Los Angeles car accident attorney about your options.

One of the most common reasons why people are ejected from vehicles is their failure to wear seatbelts. Without a seatbelt, the force of the crash can push a person out of the car. Other factors that can result in being ejected are excessive vehicle speed, defective seat belts, defective side windows, defective latches, improperly installed child seats, or a vehicle rollover. Once ejected, a person is at increased risk of being run over and suffering even worse injuries.

If you were ejected from your car in a collision with a negligent driver, you may need significant medical care and may no longer be able to work. You will need to establish the other driver's negligence. This means that you will need to prove that the other driver owed you a duty, breached this duty, and caused your injuries. These elements of your claim must be proven by a preponderance of the evidence.

Often, the other driver will claim that you were comparatively negligent for failing to wear a seatbelt or speeding. Comparative negligence, when raised, requires the jury to determine who was at fault for the accident and assign blame for the accident. Your damages, if you were comparatively negligent, are reduced by your percentage of fault. For example, if another driver was speeding and was 60% at fault, but you were not wearing your seatbelt and were 40% at fault for your injuries, and the damages were $500,000, you may be able to recover $300,000 from the at-fault driver.

However, in some cases, an ejection is caused by a defect in the seatbelt or some other aspect of the car's manufacturing. Your attorney may be able to recover damages from a manufacturer if the car was not crashworthy, and the lack of crashworthiness is to blame for at least some of your injuries. Vehicle crashworthiness claims can involve restraint systems and anti-ejection measures that minimize injuries to people inside the vehicle. It is important to work with investigators and experts to determine whether the ejection was caused fully or partially by a vehicle that was not crashworthy.

Experts can analyze a car's safety performance in different scenarios and determine whether conscious choices were made to ignore problems with how the restraint system functioned. With a potential crashworthiness claim, we will need to work with an expert to prove that there was an alternative design that was feasible, but the manufacturer chose not to incorporate it. In some cases, crashworthiness contributes to the injuries arising out of an accident caused by a driver who can be responsible for a plaintiff's damages. However, crashworthiness claims may comprise the whole of a case involving an ejection from a vehicle in a single-car accident.

When multiple forces combine to create an accident, it may be possible to sue multiple parties. For example, if you were a passenger ejected from a negligent friend's car in an accident involving both drivers' negligence as well as the crashworthiness of the friend's car, you might be able to recover damages from the friend, the other driver, and the vehicle manufacturer.

Injuries caused by ejection from a vehicle can be devastating. At Sharifi Firm, APC, our experienced Los Angeles attorneys can evaluate the circumstances surrounding a motor vehicle collision to determine whom to hold accountable for your injuries. Contact us at (866) 422-7222 or via our online form. Our injury lawyers also represent people in cities such as Riverside, Temecula, Rancho Cucamonga, Glendale, Covina, and San Bernardino.