Question

law

David Harred is driving his vehicle on the freeway on Highway 89 in Utah. While David is driving, he receives a text message from his girlfriend. David’s cell phone is on his lap while he is driving. While driving, David looks down to read the text message. After David reads the text message from his girlfriend, David begins to text a response on his cell phone and is NOT watching the road. When David looks up from his phone, he runs straight into a man that is jay-walking on the Highway. The jay-walker is named Larry. Upon David hitting Larry with his vehicle, Larry is thrown several feet. David stops his vehicle, slams on the breaks, jumps out of his car, runs to Larry, and calls the police and 911. Luckily, Larry survived the accident. However, Larry suffers from a broken leg and broken arm and also suffers a head injury. From the accident, David is also hurt and suffers from a fractured rib and two broken fingers from the accident. Larry’s medical damages equate to $35,000. David’s medical damages equate to $15,000. About one month later, Larry sues David in District Court for $35,000 in damages due to the accident. Larry claims that David is liable for being negligent on the road, texting and driving, which caused Larry’s medical damages. David counter-sues Larry for $15,000 in damages due to the accident. David claims that despite the fact he was texting while driving, David would not have hit Larry if Larry was not jay-walking. Larry violated the law by jay-walking. The trial is before a Jury. After listening to the evidence, the Jury awards NO damages to either party, finding that because David is 60% liable for the damages for his negligence and because Larry is 40% liable for the damages for his negligence, neither party is awarded any damages. Question: Under what damages doctrine for negligence cases is the Jury following when issuing this award?

Answer 1

In case of David and Larry, David had made the offence of texting while driving and the latter one have committed the offence of jay-walking. So in both the cases, we cannot hold one party as the reason for the happening of this unintentional or unfortunate accident.

Under the elements of a negligence claim, the injured person i.e. the plaintiff should be able to prove the following:

Duty which is that the defendant holds some duty towards the plaintiff for causing the injury under the given circumstances and that the defendant have breached the legal duty by acting or failing to act in a certain way. And that it was merely the defendant’s action that caused the plaintiff injured. As he was injured only due to the defendant’s actions, he owes the plaintiff the damages for the same.

And keeping all the above stipulated points in mind, it is clear that, it was not merely the fault of the defendant i.e. David in the current case and the plaintiff i.e. Larry also had made the mistake by not complying to the duty of the law or not acting in the certain way which here is not to do the jay-walking. And jaywalk is, ‘cross or walk in the street or road unlawfully or without regard for approaching traffic.’