troubledwaters wrote:
sayoung wrote:
troubledwaters wrote:
If your in an accident and someone decides to sue you, whether you were towing 10,000 lbs or 12,000 lbs is never going to come up in the discussion. It's not realistic to try and prove to a jury (who knows nothing about towing, weights, or why it matters) how much the rear axle of the truck weighed at the scene of the accident 3 years ago, rather then you simply failed to stop in time.
My attorney would use that info to convince the jury you overloaded on purpose just to injure someone for enjoyment. There are some pretty good attorneys out there makeing a boat load of cash by using every tidbit of info that can remotely be added to the story of how negligent the defendent was. Civil suits are to the point the attorneys should have to belong to the Actors Guild as well as the Bar. I tell my Son this all the time as he is an Attorney.
So how is your attorney going to prove what Anything weighed at the time of the crash. Cause unless he is out there at the scene of the crime and takes possession of both vehicles then and there, he can prove nothing. He doesn't know how much water was in the tanks, whether the pantry was full or empty, how much stuff was in the back of the truck, etc., etc., etc.
It makes for a good scare tactic, but show me one case in real life where a non-commercial RV was found liable and paid damages because they exceed vehicle manufacturer's specifications.
Ask your son the Attorney which case he would rather try and prove; he was exceeding the manufacturer's specifications or he failed to stop in time.
In a civil suit all the lawyer needs is to hit the emotional button of a majority of jurors not all of them as in a criminal case, screw the proof. Convince the jury it could have been one of them that was hit and you will protect your family by awarding a big settleme to this victim. I've been on a civil jury twice and both times the majority didn't look at facts, just the emotion of sympathy for the plaintiff.
