Government Liability for Wrecks Involving Disabled Vehicles

Disabled vehicles end up parked or abandoned in unsafe places. There are a lot of collisions involving disabled vehicles.

One of the reasons is something called “expectancy effect.” Drivers scan for moving hazards; drivers are less likely to notice stationary hazards; and an unexpected stopped vehicle often takes longer to recognize than a moving vehicle.

Sometimes owners of disabled vehicles don’t have insurance or other resources. So when there’s a wreck involving a disabled vehicle it becomes important to find someone other than the owner of the vehicle to pay for the injured person’s damages. That’s usually the government (since it’s responsible for ensuring that roads are reasonably safe).

To prevail on a claim like this you have to be able to show that the government had notice of the hazard and a reasonable opportunity to respond.

The best way to prevent a wreck with a disabled vehicle is to remove it. The next best way is to mark it so that it shows up on the radar of oncoming drivers despite the fact that it’s not moving (see expectancy effect, above).

Some questions that can be answered by submitting public records requests:

* Did police or highway personnel respond to an earlier accident?


* Did they leave the disabled vehicle in a travel lane or immediately adjacent to it?


* Did they conspicuously mark the disabled vehicle if they were unable to move it to a safer location?


One tip in terms of pursuing these cases: It’s important to frame this as a breach of the common law duty to provide safe roadways rather than a violation of statute related to towing. The public duty doctrine really limits claims against government agencies for failing to satisfy statutory duties. But that defense doesn’t apply to common law duties under a recent case (Norg v. City of Seattle).