Thinking Outside The Box Pays Off
This Success Story makes me appreciate how what seemed like a case-specific realization spawned a whole new way of looking at liability in intersection, driveway and other cases.
A lot of people use the expression “thinking outside the box”. It’s over-used. But it conveys a good point—especially if you think of “the box” in motor vehicle cases as the drivers involved in the collision.
This case started off like a lot of other cases. There was a bad wreck between a motorcycle and a minivan. It happened at an uncontrolled intersection.
We settled the case for a significant amount of money against the mini-van driver. The funny thing was, the mini-van driver didn’t seem particularly at fault. In fact, she didn’t really seem at fault at all.
Sometimes the truth stares you right in the face. And if you don’t have an open mind you’re not going to see it.
In this case our client said she didn’t see the mini-van. The mini-van driver said she didn't see our client's motorcycle.
Neither one of them could see each other because one of the homeowners with a corner lot at the intersection where the accident happened let his hedge grow way too high. It blocked the view of oncoming motorists from two different directions.
After we settled the case against the other driver we went ahead and made a claim against the homeowner. We ended up collecting his homeowners insurance liability limits.
Taking a step back allowed us to see outside the "box" that constrained what could be recovered in these kinds of cases.
Two claps to thinking outside the box. Not just about obstructed sight triangles (which I've written about quite a bit) but generally relaxing our gaze a little bit so the forest of possibility emerges.