New Haven Auto Accident: What To Do If Hit By A Delivery Driver

New Haven auto accidents involving delivery vehicles may provide victims with additional alternatives for compensation. The driver of a delivery vehicle who causes an accident remains liable. However, other parties may also face liability primarily their employer if the driving employee is performing their duties within the scope of employment:

• The employer hired the employee to perform a specific task
• Within authorized time and space limits
• At least in part to serve the employer

Liability may extend to a driver’s employer in the following example:

A delivery driver, delivering to a customer, drives a company vehicle at high speeds, swerving in and out of traffic despite wet weather conditions. The delivery driver loses control of the vehicle and crashes into another vehicle in oncoming traffic, injuring that driver and that car’s passengers.

Here, the driver acts within the scope of employment because the driver is making a delivery on behalf of the employer (and in a company vehicle). The driver’s negligence causes the New Haven auto accident and injures the other vehicle’s passengers. Because of these factors, the injured parties may recover compensation from both the driver and employer.

Victims cannot always hold a delivery driver’s employer liable. For example, if the driver in the above scenario was not making a delivery and was instead making a detour to visit a friend, then the employer may avoid liability—visiting a friend is not within the driver’s scope of employment.

The facts of a case are not always as cut and dry as the above examples. To determine whether you can hold a delivery driver’s employer liable for injuries the driver caused you, seek an experienced New Haven auto accident attorney.