If you’re involved in a truck accident, you’re already likely worried about how it will affect your personal life as well as your work. Your employer may have strict rules about what happens if you’re in a crash, and if you’re cited with a traffic violation, you could be put on probation at work or worse. If you were at fault, you could be held liable for any injuries you caused someone else in the accident, which is why it’s important never to admit fault at the scene. Allow the police time to review the accident and the insurance companies time to finish their own investigations.
Something that may affect you at work if you’re found to be at fault is the fact that your employer might be held liable for your actions. The victim may be able to pursue compensation from a number of sources after the crash. For example, with a vicarious liability case, he or she could claim that your employer is responsible for any actions you, its employee, took, so it should likewise be responsible for carelessness resulting in an accident. You could be named as a defendant in the civil case, and your employer could be as well. If you have a history of accidents or negligence, then your employer could face some trouble for failing to perform background checks or taking the time to go through safety protocols with its drivers.
With cases where there’s a fault with the vehicle that was being driven, you may be able to seek compensation from the manufacturer of the vehicle or its parts and the victim may be able to as well, since you would both be injured as a result of the product. This is called a strict liability case; If injured by a defective product, consumers have the right to seek compensation to cover the cost of injuries suffered as a result of that product.
Source: FindLaw, “An Employer’s Liability for Employee’s Acts,” accessed Oct. 11, 2016