Who is responsible for an accident at a car wash?
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Who is responsible for an accident at a car wash?
I was inside my car inside a car wash. I without knowing pushed the emergency break button on my console. Needless to say my car jumped the tracks. The auto stop and alarm shut down the track, no one came to me. Then the line started up again , my car stood still and I started laying on my horn. It was not until another customer heard my horn and advise the workers that a car was stuck did they come to see what the problem was. Of course by this time I was rear ended as was the car behind me. The third car is making a claim against my insurance company. I feel that since the car wash restarted and did not check out was was going on and come to help me that they should be responsible. Who is responsible; all is on video.
Asked on April 23, 2013 under Accident Law, Michigan
Answers:
MD, Member, California Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 11 years ago | Contributor
Well, you need a lawyer or at least your insurance company should hire an attorney to subpoena the video and probably use joinder to bring in the car wash, car wash owner and the insurance company. The problem though for you is that you acknowledge that you pushed the emergency break on your vehicle. It doesn't matter whether you knew or didn't know. The bottom line is you had total control of the items within your vehicle (I don't mean the outside) and therefore, you did start the accident. This is going to be about negligence and whether or not your negligence created the accidents or whether the intervening negligence of the car wash not coming to help you caused the problems or the intervening negligence of the other cars who probably should have all put their cars in reverse and moved away from the line.
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