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Fatal Collision Makes Car-Sharing Worries No Longer Theoretical

• bcl 14y ago
  I don't understand why they aren't going after the dead guy's insurance. He's the one who was at fault, not the owner of the car, so his insurance should be the one to pay for the injuries.
  • steve8918 14y ago
    If the person didn't have their own car, I would be surprised if they had their own car insurance. The victims could sue the estate, but there might not be a lot of money in it.
    • delinka 14y ago
      In my state, you can't get auto insurance without a car. You can be a licensed driver, you can have money to hand the insurance company for your premium, but if you don't own a car, you can't get car insurance. I don't know if you could get general liability insurance that would also cover you driving other people's cars. But if it's the car that's insured, why do specific drivers have to be listed on the policy? The way I understand it is even if I'm not listed on someone's policy and I'm driving their car, their auto insurance covers my fuck up when I cause an accident. Doesn't seem right, but I suppose that's the way it works.
      • jacquesgt 14y ago
        When you're driving someone else's car, their collision/comprehensive insurance covers damage to their car (although there's a chance their insurance company will decline to pay or decide to sue you depending on the circumstances). Your liability insurance covers personal injury and property damage that you cause to others. Drivers are listed for two reasons. The first is because a big chunk of car insurance is liability insurance. The second is because the probability of the insurance company having to pay to repair or replace your car depends on the likelihood one of the drivers will cause an accident. This is all made more complicated by the fact that personal injury lawsuits are a numbers game. If the driver didn't have insurance and their estate has very little money, it doesn't matter that making them liable is a slam dunk case. It's not worth the effort. On the other hand, if the car owner has insurance, is alive, and has a lifetime income potential in the tens of millions of dollars, that's worth a lawsuit even if the probability of success is lower. It feels scummy, but most personal injury lawyers are investing in cases. They'll be happy to take a lower probability chance on a bigger return. It's not all that different from venture capital, although you could argue pretty easily that VCs are a more positive force for social good and value creation.
      • dlgeek 14y ago
        That's odd, in NC where I was originally licensed, you had to prove insurance coverage before they would issue you a license.
    • fl3tch 14y ago
      When you rent a car, you usually pay for insurance specifically for that car, for the few days you drive it. Why would this be different?
      • protomyth 14y ago
        It seems like EasyRide doesn't follow the rental companies time tested way of doing insurance. Having a company policy is interesting, the problem is the courts assume company policies cover vehicles "owned" (through actual ownership or lease) by a company and driven by employees or people under their hire (e.g. consultants). They probably should have gone with part of the fee being an actual insurance policy for the driver for the car. It would be a much easier and known business scenario for the courts. If your business model requires new rulings by the courts, then you better have deep pockets.
    • gcb 14y ago
      The insurance company can't have the cake and.eat it too. Either the owner pay as if she wasn't doing a business, or the dead guy's pay as if he was driving a rental. Mine is pretty basic and i can pay my deductible for rentals.
  • hollerith 14y ago
    Liability law allows the injured party to go after both, and if one of them was without insurance . . .
  • dkrich 14y ago
    Because that's not how car insurance works. You purchase a policy to insure your car (and in most cases other drivers in your family). Car insurance doesn't insure the individual against whatever vehicle he may be operating on any given day. That's why your car insurance is based upon the make/model/year of your car, as well as which state it is registered in, how many miles you drive it per day, etc. It also seems from the article that they haven't determined who was at fault.
    • steve8918 14y ago
      Some car insurance policies cover rental cars. My insurance covers car rentals, so that I don't need to pay for the insurance coverage when I rent a car. From the article: "According to a preliminary police report, their car was hit by an oncoming car that seemed to have been traveling south in their northbound lane. The report concluded that Mr. Fortuna would be found at fault."
    • jacquesgt 14y ago
      That actually is how car insurance works. There's a property insurance component ("collision" and "comprehensive") that insures you against loss or damage to your property. Then there's a more expensive liability insurance component that insures you against liability as a driver of any car. The property insurance portion is optional as long as you own your car outright.
      • Nrsolis 14y ago
        Correct. Liability is the "required" part of insurance in most states. It follows you from car to car. What has likely happened is that they person who rented the car didn't have insurance of their own. That seems likely, since it's kind of pointless to have automotive liability insurance if you don't own a car. Even more so if you're used to purchasing insurance at the point of sale when you rent a car.
      • dkrich 14y ago
        Incorrect. Car insurance generally "follows the car." If you lend your car to your buddy and he gets into an accident, your insurer is the primary. If you don't have insurance on the car, then if he has insurance it may cover some of the associated costs. That all gets settled in court. Collision is not required, but liability is.
• ivankirigin 14y ago
  This is a bit of FUD IMHO Also, I've thought for some time that P2P car sharing should be over longer terms, like months.
  • joelhaasnoot 14y ago
    With all the financial products the banking world creates, I'm sure someone will come up with an insurance policy for this. Sure it won't be cheap, but will be a solution.
    • newbie12 14y ago
      Agreed. The market will sort this out. RelayRides needs to completely protect its car lenders.
  • raverbashing 14y ago
    Agreed "That's why we can't have nice things" Too much liability issues and because of (most likely) an irresponsible driver now they're (or better, someone that can pin any cost on the injured) goes after the car renter, car manufacturer, road authority, etc. They'll probably make a way for Steve Jobs to be liable as well if they can, I guess "no longer theoretical" No crap sherlock. People have been getting injured in car accidents for the past 100 years. By getting into a car and driving you assume a non zero risk of being injured or killed in a car accident. Do you want zero risk? Live in a bubble Now his suddenly becomes a multi-million dollar cash cow for several 3rd parties. Except for the victims of course, who'll have to deal with giant health costs (because of similar excess liability and regulation meandering by the authorities and greed by the medical industry) Sure, liability is important, if it involved a drunk driver for example, or a fault that comes from the car maker. But there's always a risk! And preventing some risks causes even more risks sometimes.
    • sethg 14y ago
      By getting into a car and driving you assume a non zero risk of being injured or killed in a car accident. By getting into a car and driving you assume a non zero risk of being sued for damages caused by a car accident.
• jiggy2011 14y ago
  Perhaps the answer here is to insist that a renter must either have valid insurance already that would pay out to third parties in the event that they were driving any vehicle. Most fully comprehensive insurance in the UK already covers this assuming you have valid fully comp on some car already. For example I (being fully insured on my own car) could drive a friend's car without being specifically insured on it and were I to get involved in an accident (that was my fault) then damage to third parties are covered but damages to my friend's car are not unless his insurance specifically covers me. If the renter doesn't have this insurance already simply increase the amount they have to pay to rent in order to cover it.
  • kalleboo 14y ago
    It seems that most insurance in the U.S. already covers this, but RelayRides fear that with enough of these cases the insurance companies will change the plans to ban the practice of loaning out cars to strangers, thus ruining their business.
  • alister 14y ago
    > insist that a renter...have valid insurance [or pay a higher fee] If you don't own a car it is just about impossible to buy a liability insurance policy. I know this. I tried. I tried very hard. I don't own a car myself, but since I often rent a car when I travel, I decided that I'd try to buy a third-party liability policy instead of paying the absurd prices that Avis or Dollar charge (>$20 a day). I called about 10-15 insurance brokers, and not one of them had ever written a "non-owner" policy. The standard answer I got was, "You have to own a car to get liability insurance; yes, it'll cover you for other vehicles you drive, but you have to have your own car for us to create a policy for you". I realize that you are in the UK, so the situation might be different there. But in the US (and Canada), I think that RelayRides would have to be the one to provide the coverage, because the average RelayRides user (who likely lives in the same city and doesn't own a car) won't have his own liability insurance (and couldn't get it even if he wanted it!).
    • DanBC 14y ago
      Does this mean there's a niche for someone with a lot of land to buy many very cheap-to-insure vehicles and sell them to people who don't want a car but need one for insurance? The vehicles stay on the land.
• wazoox 14y ago
  The egregious part is the limited insurance coverage ($1M from the rental company and $300K from the renter). This probably wouldn't happen in Europe.
  • legulere 14y ago
    Don't know about the rest of Europe, but here in Germany we also have limited insurance coverage. By law the minimum for person damage is 7.5 million €, for property damage 1.12 million €. Usual sums are 50 or 100 million €. So in the end it's very unlikely for something like that to happen in Germany.
• mratzloff 14y ago
  As an aside, I've never heard of this service but it sounds like a terrible deal for the owner. I assume the $10/hour is supposed to help offset wear and tear, although I hope the renter has to at least replace the gas they use.
• haberman 14y ago
  It seems perverse that mere ownership of something can create liability. If she had failed to get some maintenance that made the car dangerous to drive, that would be one thing. But there is no indication that this is the case. If a psychopath rents a VHS from Blockbuster and then uses it to bludgeon someone's head in, is Blockbuster liable for that act of violence? Sure, a VHS is not intended to be used this way, but a car is not intended to be crashed either.
  • newbie12 14y ago
    It is conceivable that renting your car to a complete stranger, who might be a reckless driver, could result in serious harm to others. Even worse, in this case, RelayRides makes you partly responsible because you are allowed to interview the renter before agreeing to hand over the keys. There's an adverse selection problem with RelayRides: terrible drivers who cannot afford or obtain auto insurance will be over-represented among their customers.
  • sunir 14y ago
    It's not that straightforward. You are required to have insurance to drive a car by law for a reason. So the question here is whose insurance pays, which depends on the policy terms, not that the car owner is guilty of anything. You can insure the vehicle for all drivers for instance, in which case there would be ambiguity.
  • sliverstorm 14y ago
    Ownership implies responsibility. For precedence, see pets and children.
    • staunch 14y ago
      Guardianship is probably the word in the case of children ;-)
    • fffggg 14y ago
      Children don't have owners, they have parents -- and the determination of responsibility is much less clear than your glib comment implies. For example, is liability held by the biological parent, or by an entity acting in loco parentis? The distinction is crucial, as it is similar to the difference between an owner of a car, and a renter of a car. With pets, again, if I lease or rent a pet it is not the case that the owner is necessarily responsible for the pet while I have possession. They may, but they also may not -- and it's this uncertainty which drives much frustration with tort law.
• uptown 14y ago
  I think she's extremely naive to put her new car back into the pool before finding out how the courts handle this incident.
  • geoffschmidt 14y ago
    I think she's thinking logically. From the perspective of a RelatRides lessor, fatal accidents are low probability events. That she experienced such an event yesterday doesn't change the probability that she'll experience such an event tomorrow. She's only naive if every single RelayRides lessor who reads this story is also naive to continue using the service.
    • rdl 14y ago
      I think it would be prudent to not use the service until this is resolved in court. I already was worried enough before this to not use p2p car rental services, but this data point shows they carry inadequate insurance.
    • uptown 14y ago
      She's naive because she's choosing to re-enter a partnership based exclusively on the perceived benefits (make money, save the world, etc.) without having a clear interpretation of the associated risks. Worse yet, she doesn't even have a clear answer on what her current liabilities are from her previous vehicle. I'm amazed her insurance company offers her a policy given her apparent disregard for liability she's potentially assuming on their behalf. I agree with your last sentence.
      • Daniel_Newby 14y ago
        > I'm amazed her insurance company offers her a policy given her apparent disregard for liability she's potentially assuming on their behalf. Insurance policies generally explicitly exclude commercial leasing of the vehicle, otherwise rental companies would already be ripping them off.
• newbie12 14y ago
  RelayRides is not carrying enough insurance. Individual coverage from car owners is inadequate, and car owners can't be expected to purchase commercial car rental insurance just to participate in RelayRides. This kind of reminds me of AirBnB, where new forms of renting rely, in part, on deceiving users about the risks. RelayRides and AirBnbB business models rely in part on the savings from inadequate insurance coverage, where individuals are suckered into taking on commercial risks while still carrying only individual insurance and having unlimited personal liability.
  • kfk 14y ago
    I used AirBnB a couple of times, I think is a good idea. Prices aren't cheap at all, but you get an appartment with utilities and not a B&B room. However, I too keep wondering on the risks associated with renting. They are just difficult to estimate. The renter may put a bomb in the appartment, how do you protect yourself financially from this? For this to make sense the number of the appartments (or cars) destroyed or damaged must me low enough that the cost for repairing is way lower than AirBnB revenues. Not sure this is possible with only 10% fee on renting although.
• libria 14y ago
  > On one hand, she is certainly an inviting target. After all, she has worked full-time at Google and is now finishing her degree at M.I.T. She probably has many millions of dollars of income ahead of her that a lawyer could try to garnish. Absolutely disgusting. Our system punishes those brilliant and capable minds that can drive the nations economy. Meanwhile, underachievers everywhere can sleep peacefully. Unless her car was in a state of disrepair, any lawyer (off the record) would have to admit she couldn't be responsible. But hey, assigning liability is so much more lucrative than truth. Also, > "RelayRides rejects any suggestion that it is acting in a self-interested manner. “Our interest is in protecting Ms. Fong,”" and > When I asked the company whether this meant cutting a check to Ms. Fong-Jones if she ended up personally liable, Alex Benn, a lawyer who oversees insurance for the company, had this to say: "What happens in any sort of accident with insufficient coverage?..." seem at odds.
  • newbie12 14y ago
    She has clear liability. She agreed, after reviewing the request, to rent her car, for a profit, to someone who was a reckless driver and did serious harm to others (and, sadly, himself). I hate the U.S. tort system but some liability in this case is pretty reasonable.
    • guard-of-terra 14y ago
      No there isn't. You neither can nor should screen buyers and renters. This simply isn't your job. And it harms the business the big way. When people rent cars they also rent the risk.
      • rayiner 14y ago
        The system creates liability for owners of instrumentalities that inherently create a risk to society, like cars. Should to owners of a coal plant be liable if it explodes and injures people living nearby? Even if they weren't the ones who were operating it at the time?
        • 14y ago
• atirip 14y ago
  Well, this shows how fucked up US system is... In Europe this absolutely cannot happen. First, everybodys is health is insured by state, so whatever injuries in whatever car accident anybody may have, there's no claims to present to anybody - state pays everything. Secondly, one in Europe shall not fear any "pain-and-suffering suits", and even more when you are just the owner of the vehicle. Third, liability insurance is unlimited so if you totally trash somebody's Ferrari with your Yugo, no fear, you are fully covered.
  • olex 14y ago
    I live in Germany, and not all of this is entirely true. Liability insurance isn't strictly unlimited, the coverage limits are just very high - e.g. in Germany, personal damages are covered with a minimum of 7,5 mio. euro (with a maximum limit of 8 to 15 million per person, depending on the insurance company), and total damage is mostly limited at 50-100 mio. euro. For most accidents, these numbers are fairly equal to "unlimited". About health insurance - I'm not quite sure how you come at the conclusion that state pays everything. Injuries in an accident are paid for by the liable party's liability insurance, the same as in the U.S.
    • gcb 14y ago
      Just for comparison, here in the us insurance for a 25k car and minimal (some 100 or 300k for the described case in the article) plus uninsured driver would be well over 1.2k per month. In other countries i paid that per year for way more peace of mind.
      • mikeryan 14y ago
        I'm not sure why you're paying $1200 a month for insurance but that's not the norm for US based auto insurance at all.
        • gcb 14y ago
          I'm not. I pay 300 a year, but i don't even cover my car. But yesterday i did the car coverage for a used 09 bmw 128iC. Couldn't get any lower than that on several websites
• xxpor 14y ago
  If you wanted to rent your car out like this, how hard is it to set up an LLC so if god forbid something like this happens, they can't come after you personally?
  • deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
    • kalininalex 14y ago
      There's nothing inherently wrong with a single-member LLC. The only issue with it is it's a relatively new entity and the body of legal precedents is not large, so it's hard to predict how a court would rule in any particular case. Instead, you could use an S-corporation with the same result, but much better legal visibility. The issue is, however, that you're now operating your own rental company. You'd need to capitalize it, buy commercial insurance, purchase various licenses, etc. This is probably not what clients of RelayRides had in mind.
      • deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        • kalininalex 14y ago
          Setting up a company to shield one's assets is perfectly lawful. In fact, many entities out there exist for this very purpose. However, to accomplish it, one must follow certain rules. Simply filing the paperwork is not sufficient. The intent is not important. Either the entity is properly setup and run and shields personal assets, or it's not.
  • kalininalex 14y ago
    Simply setting up LLC (or any other type of entity) is not sufficient. To shield your personal assets LLC needs to be properly capitalized and be managed like a proper business. Essentially, it will at least require carrying some kind of commercial insurance, plus having extra money in the bank for operating expenses (how much - depends on the business). This sort of defeats the idea of effortless car sharing.
• rayiner 14y ago
  I don't get the people complaining about the tort system. The tort system didn't create the losses here, the car and the driver created the losses. The people being severely injured created the losses, and frankly for severe injuries to 4 people in an accident that killed one person, $1.5 million is not an unreasonable estimate of the actual economic loss in this situation. The tort system is just allocating this loss to the parties involved. The fact of the matter is that cars are dangerous instrumentalities. A car accident can create enormous costs. In car sharing, someone must bear the cost of this risk. With its $1m of liability insurance, RelayRides is taking on a fixed amount of risk, and allocating the rest to the car owner. I think you'd be stupid to take on this risk without more compensation than what RelayRides provides, but that's what Ms. Fong signed up for.
  • WildUtah 14y ago
    Individuals are largely shielded from taking responsibility for the dangers and costs of car crashes in the USA by special exceptions and allowances. Companies and commercial renters are not so protected. That makes consumers drastically underestimate the real costs of their car use and RelayRides is going to face a hard task in keeping it covered up for their individual providers. Both civil and criminal liability for killing and injuring others with a car non-commercially are incredibly cheap. The usual penalty for killing someone with a car is no penalty at all, even though over one hundred people a day die from driver negligence.
    • rayiner 14y ago
      I agree. The solution is fewer restrictions on tort liability, not more. If people bore the costs of driving, they would drive less.
  • ams6110 14y ago
    Besides seeking reimbursement for medical bills (Mr. Knecht’s alone are nearing $100,000, according to his lawyer, William Doyle Jr.), the injured people could also file pain-and-suffering suits. “If somebody crosses the center line and plows into your car, it does a number on you in terms of how you feel about getting into a car,” said Jonathan Karon, Ms. Hodges’s lawyer. The above sort of BS is my complaint about the tort system. I've been hit by a car crossing the center line and plowing into my car. It didn't change how I feel about getting into a car, at least not in any debilitating way. I am perhaps (sometimes) a bit more alert to whether oncoming cars seem to be drifting towards the line. And please tell me how "pain and suffering" compensation is going to remedy any "feelings" you have about getting into a car?
• pwthornton 14y ago
  Zipcar and similar car clubs makes a lot more sense than car sharing. You essentially join Zipcar and share the liability and car ownership costs. $1 million is not enough coverage in the case of a catastrophic accident, and the law and insurance companies have not caught up to car sharing. I would not rent my car out unless the liability issue was better taken care of. But then again, I don't get car sharing vs. car clubs. If you need your car so little that you can rent it out, why not just join Zipcar or another car sharing club?
  • gcb 14y ago
    The main thing is: - she don't need the car often - buys expensive new car - buys a car that can't sit for a long time If she researched a little more she would have not got a new hybrid but some old diesel. It's probably cleaner than agasoline hybrid doesn't generate all the upfront manufacturing garbage and batteries that are awful for the environment and reuse a car that is already made anyway.
    • pwthornton 14y ago
      Agreed. A Prius can be a great car, but for her particular situation, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The core market for Prius owners are people who drive their cars a lot. While I'm not a fan of lung-clogging diesels, in this case, it may make a bit of sense. There are people in my area with 20-year-old or so diesel cars. They don't need need the same kind of driving maintenance that hybrids do. I don't know if she has access to Zipcar or a similar service, but if she does, that would have probably been the best bet. Let someone else deal with the ownership, storage, maintenance and liability.
    • SkyMarshal 14y ago
      > If she researched a little more she would have not got a new hybrid but some old diesel. It's probably cleaner than agasoline hybrid I was under the impression old diesels were dirtier than gasoline engines. New clean deisels like in Audi's no, but old ones? But you're saying they're cleaner?
      • 14y ago
• Tooluka 14y ago
  It is beyond my understanding how could Ms. Fong-Jones even considered being responsible. This a complete bullshit. It is like suing knife salesman for each harmful incident involving knifes he sold. Also I don't understand why people here say that "In car sharing, someone must bear the cost of this risk.". If lightning would stuck that car, who would they sue, Zeus?
  • Mvandenbergh 14y ago
    Nobody would be sued, the owner of any property bears the risk of its accidental destruction unless they transfer some or all of that risk to an insurance company.
• robomartin 14y ago
  Hypothetical: I lend a hammer to a neighbor. He then goes and, after building the cabinet he needed the hammer for, kills two people with it. Why am I liable for his actions? This is the part of the rent-your-car story I just don't get. She had nothing to do with it. She should have zero liability. That's the part of the legal system that is really messed-up. Liability for this accident should sit squarely on the shoulders of those directly involved in causing it. The only way she should be liable is if the car had a known defect that caused the accident.
  • rayiner 14y ago
    The difference is that car accidents are a foreseeable and inherent risk of car operation, but not hammer operation.
    • learc83 14y ago
      Car accidents are foreseeable and inherent, but this guy was driving in the wrong lane, what if he intentionally did it as a suicide (not saying he did, but hypothetically). What if someone rented a car and intentionally drove it into a crowd of people?
• deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
• cantankerous 14y ago
  I'd personally feel more comfortable putting my car into a car-share pool if I had to transfer the title to the pool in exchange for payouts and some kind of guarantee of a way to get the title of my car back to me should I want to retake ownership. Shouldn't this alleviate the personal liability issue? The deaths involved are most certainly a tragedy, but I find it impossible to fault Ms. Fong for any wrongdoing.
• ricardobeat 14y ago
  Legal blabber aside, the tone in the article is infuriating - standard US media fear-inducing lawsuit crap. Instead of reporting on the legal hurdles or debating the consequences they just want to send a message that it's "dangerous" to engage in new business like this.
  • finneusbarr 14y ago
    Articles like this tend to create a risk-averse culture, causing people to be afraid of failure. An article that was more negative towards the lawyers/tort law would be much better, I think.
• vinayan3 14y ago
  Who was this person who rented the car? He was driving in the wrong lane. What kind of screening did RelayRides do?
  • ars 14y ago
    Beyond checking that he has a valid drivers license (not suspended, etc), what else do you expect them to do?
    • tibbon 14y ago
      Exactly. Before renting anything to anyone should they undergo a 2-day full psychological evaluation to ensure that they are mentally stable, plus a full driving skills assessment? No, that's clearly absurd. It should be the driver and his estate that is responsible in the end. If that estate does not have enough resources to cover the damages, then... well, shit happens and sometimes there's just no recourse for bad luck.
• tzs 14y ago
  I see a lot of discussion of the legal system and assignment of liability. There's an interesting fact about the legal system in non-criminal cases that is widely overlooked--there is usually no possible outcome that doesn't screw someone. Accordingly, when someone is found liable in tort, it doesn't necessarily mean the court is blaming them for the accident. Let me give a classic example. Three men go out hunting. They come to a clearing, and two of the men go around on the left and the third goes around on the right. A game bird flies up from the clearing when the two groups are on opposite sides. Both men on the left fire at the bird. One of them gets the bird. One of them misses the bird but hits their companion who was going around the right. It is not possible to determine which man shot the bird and which shot the human. Both shooters claim that they definitely shot the bird, of course. The third man sues the first two. There's no outcome that does not screw at least one of the three: 1. The court could find neither shooter is liable, since it cannot be proven which actually fired the errant shot. That screws the third man since he got shot and cannot collect damages from the shooter. 2. The court could find that both shooters are liable, and make each pay half the damages. Assuming each shooter can actually afford half the damages that is fair to the third man, but screws whichever shooter actually hit the bird. 3. Furthermore, in #3, support it turns out one of the shooters has a lot more money than the other. Then in addition to screwing one of the shooters, the third man could get screwed in that he might not be able to collect enough to cover his medical bills. 4. The court could find that the two shooters are jointly liable, and not even try to allocate blame between them. The third man can enforce the judgement against them however he wants. So, if one shooter has a lot of money and one does not, the third man would enforce against the one with the most money. This is good for the third man as it lets him get his medical bills covered. It potentially screws the wealthy shooter, though, if in fact he was the one who shot the bird--he's left holding the bag for all of the damages. The way it actually happens in most states is #4. The idea is that of the three men the one who least deserves getting screwed is the guy who got shot, so we want to maximize the chances that he can recover full damages, and can do so quickly. Only #4 ensures that. As far as the shooters go, if one of them isn't happy with the way the third man chooses to go about collating the damages, he's free to file a lawsuit against the other shooter to recover the amount he thinks he was unfairly forced to pay. Note that even though one of the shooters did not shoot the third man, it was his shot that created the ambiguity as to which one of them did shoot the third man. This is called "joint and several liability". This is a pretty good system. It lets the party that is actually injured get damages quicker to get them on the road to recovery (and keep them from getting bankrupted by medical bills), but still lets the parties that contributed to the injury fight it out among themselves to figure out how, ultimately, the damages should be split among them. Note: joint and several liability only applies to defendants who do have some liability, as determined by the court, I believe.
• tibbon 14y ago
  Can someone explain to me why it isn't always the operator of the vehicle who is liable for death/destruction caused by their operation? Unless the brake lines were severed intentionally or the vehicle was provably neglected, then it would seem to me that the ultimate responsibility is on the driver who causes the accident- not the owner of the car or the company that facilitated the rental.
  • Nelson69 14y ago
    Well, he's dead. In some sort of spiritual way, he is liable. What's going on here isn't about the guilt or real liability, it's about trying to turn pain and suffering into money. The simple rules for that are if you're going to try to sue someone, sue someone that has money and sue someone that you can get the money from. RelayRides, I would think, would be a better target, you might get more money faster but the reality here, unfortunate or not (depending on who's side you take,) is RelayRides is going to be sued and Ms. Fong is probably going to be sued too. Tell me why RelayRide's funders aren't the ones holding the bag here, figure that one out, you nearly never hear about that. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes people don't seem to mind. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder (re: as in found not guilty by a jury) and yet he was sued for moneys due to the death of his ex-wife and her friend, everyone sort of felt okay with that. Ms. Fong, strictly speaking, didn't crash the car, but she stood to profit from the cars use and it was her car and she has insurance, she's going to likely get sued. It's a real bummer those folks got hurt, sounds pretty rough to me, I hope someone makes them whole or as whole as they can be. It's the system we've got.
    • tibbon 14y ago
      I guess I see it as his estate being the one that is responsible financially at this point. Life insurance policy, home, car, investments, etc. Her making $10/hr off it really just doesn't seem to factor in in my mind. Wrecking the car wasn't an expected use of that rental.
• deepGem 14y ago
  Just an analogy - what if you rent your house and the renter happens to be a serial killer and 'uses' the house to murder people, and in one of the acts kills himself. Won't it be ludicrous for the authorities to prosecute the owner ? Unless they can establish that the owner had prior knowledge of the serial killer and rented the house on purpose. I don't understand how the owner of the car can be held responsible for the damages.