A car accident in Epsom, New Hampshire proved to be a deadly one with one of the drivers perishing from the injuries. Three others were rushed to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident highlights how the legal doctrine of negligence per se can work in a car crash case.
Car Crosses Centerline and Causes Deadly Crash
The incident happened around 8pm on Sunday night, March 11, 2018.
While the accident is still under investigation, the initial reports suggest that the crash involved two vehicles: a Chevy Malibu was traveling northbound on Route 28 while a Chevy Equinox was traveling south. The Malibu, for reasons not known yet, crossed the centerline of Route 28 and entered the southbound lane where it caused a head-on collision with the Equinox.
The driver of the Malibu died in the crash. The driver and the two passengers in the Equinox suffered serious but not life-threatening personal injuries as a result of the crash.
The Legal Doctrine of Negligence Per Se
If you are hurt because of someone else’s negligence or poor conduct, you can file a personal injury claim to obtain the compensation you need to assist with your injuries and damages. To win your case, you have to show four things:
- The person you are suing had a duty to keep you safe or free from harm,
- That person failed to uphold the duty,
- That failure caused your injuries, and
- You were, in fact, hurt.
Proving that someone else had a duty to keep you safe or out of harm’s way can be difficult to prove, as it often involves fact-intensive discussions about whether what they were doing was “reasonable” or not. However, there is one handy way to prove that someone else was acting “unreasonably,” and therefore should be held liable for your injuries: everyone has a legal duty to abide by the rules of the road.
The legal idea of negligence per se takes this fact and follows it through to its logical conclusion: if everyone has a legal duty to abide by the rules of the road, then any car accident that happens when someone violates one of those rules automatically indicates a legal duty existed and it was breached. As long as that failure to uphold the legal duty was the cause of your injuries, then your personal injury case has pretty much been made.
In the case of what seemed to happen in the fatal car crash near Epsom then, the doctrine of negligence per se would make the driver who crossed the centerline liable for the crash – N.H. Rev. Stat. § 265:16 requires drivers to stay on the right side of the road.
New Hampshire Car Accident Attorneys at Tenn And Tenn
Using the legal doctrine of negligence per se is something that the car accident and personal injury attorneys at the Manchester, NH law office of Tenn And Tenn, PA do all the time for our clients. Contact us online or call us at (888) 332-5855 for the legal help you need to recover the compensation you deserve.