It can be very challenging when you hurt yourself in an accident or a fall.
And it usually gets even worse if you have a second accident or fall before you completely recover from your first accident.
When it comes to multiple accidents and multiple injuries things can get a little complicated.
The easy scenario is if you injured two completely separate parts of your body in each accident. For example, if you broke your arm in one accident and injured nothing else then later broke your leg and nothing else. Each at fault defendant is responsible for paying for the specific damages that they caused and in this example it should be fairly easy to figure out who is responsible for what. But life usually doesn’t work out that way.
Normally in the case of multiple accidents injuries overlap. And then it can get a little complicated. Especially if different laws apply – like for example one accident was a motor vehicle accident and one was a fall. The law is very different for each of these types of accidents. And it can get very complicated if the injuries overlap.
The big danger for claimants in a case of multiple accidents and multiple injuries is to be careful not to fall between the cracks. The defendants in each accident will try to blame each other. Each defendant will argue that the other accident was the primary causer of the damages. If you settle one accident and not the other there is a risk you could recover very little from the second accident. For this reason it can be dangerous to settle one accident and not the other at the same time. Usually, but not always it’s better to settle both claims at the same time. This way the claimant recovers the full amount to which they are entitled.
When there are overlapping injuries as a result of multiple accidents the damages incurred by the claimant as a result of both accidents are supposed to be assessed globally – as if they were one. Then after the damages are assessed the defendants fight about who is responsible for paying what and the general rule is each defendant pays for what they are responsible.
But there is the occasional situation where it is impossible to separate the injuries. In such a case it is possible that each defendant may be responsible for one hundred percent of the damages. This only becomes practically relevant, however, if one of the defendants doesn’t have insurance.