Property Invasion, Damages, Trespass ridiculous case.. tell me what you think please

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football7070

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Ok, so this happened to a buddy of mine. Im trying to gather information to help put his mind at ease. Last weekend he was at a party. He walked outside to urinate since all the bathrooms were full. He sat down his beer bottle in the driveway so he could relieve himself. After getting done his business he started to mingle with friends that he knew, accidentally forgetting about his bottle in the driveway. Meanwhile about 20 minutes later this girl ( an enemy of his) backs out of the driveway and runs over his bottle. Approximately 9 days later shes driving down the road and gets a flat tire and pulls off the side of the road and runs into a mailbox or a phone poll ( somthing of the nature). Now shes trying to sue my friend for damages to her car and personal injuries, claiming HIS bottle is the reason she got a flat tire NINE days later!!!!! I call B.S., but tell me what you's think... Thank you.
 
Anyone can sue anyone else for anything they want. Filing a lawsuit is easy. Winning is not.

I cannot imagine that she would be able to prove such an absurd scenario, but there is nothing to prevent her from trying to do so.
 
Although, if she and your friend are "enemies" (whatever that means), then she can always claim that his act was malicious and was vandalism if the bottle just happened to be placed behind her tire.

Hopefully your friend is not that petty.

I'm curious ... how did she find out that HE put the bottle there? Is there someone who will crawl out of the woodwork to say he was bragging about damaging her tire or some such thing?
 
no no, he just simply put it down so he could urinate, not intending to damage her car. i think what happened was she was backing up, hit the bottle and put down her window and said " hey whos bottle was that?" and then he realized he had forgot to pick it up when he was done. I do know he apologized numerous times.
 
Proving that it took more than a week to flatten her tire will be a tough sale to a court. If she gets the tire inspected, and some expert is willing to testify that the flat was caused by glass fragments from the type of bottle he was drinking from, he might be found at least partially liable. But, that's a stretch, in my opinion.

He should probably just keep his yap shut until he gets slapped with the lawsuit. If that happens, and it is not in small claims court, he will probably need to speak with an attorney.
 
If he is found liable, he could be assessed a percentage of the damage to the tire and any damage that occurred as a result of the tire going flat and his vehicle losing control.
 
This sounds like a hypothetical case in law school to explore the concept of "proximate cause." This case, though it can be brought will fail because there is no proximate cause.

She can POSSIBLY recover for the cost of her tire, but the accident and personal injury is simply too far removed to have your friend be the proximate cause of the accident. I don't even believe that she can prove that he was the proximate cause of the flat tire because it was 9 days later. She apparently knew that she ran over the beer bottle or she would not know to sue him. So not only would the lawsuit fail for proximate cause but also, she is contributorily negligent because she ran over the beer bottle and did nothing to take care of the damage to her tire for nine days. Driving on a damaged tire makes her just as negligent as he.

This case has NO merit. It can still be brought but she will not recover anything more than POSSIBLY the tire, and that only if she can show that the damage from the bottle caused the flat 9 days later. Tough proof.
 
wow thanks for the information..... just out of curiousity now.. lets say she had wrecked her car and the injuries were worse and possibly the accident resulted in death of the vehicle driver. how would that change things?
 
It wouldn't change things at all. The questions are still the same. Who is the proximate cause of the accident? If she knew about the beer bottle and tire for 9 days she had a duty to cure it.
 
I was an attorney in Virginia. I am not practicing now though I do help out several lawyers in this state with research and writing and I am writing several legal E-books to form a self help legal library.
 
jharris352,
gathered more information about this case.. apparently my friend offered to pay for a new tire if damage was done. But the girl seemed to ignore his offer. He offered this even before the accident happened.. would this help him in court??
 
As Moose said, absolutely that would just be more help. His defenses mount.

1. He is not the proximate cause of her accident.
2. She knew about the potentially damaged tire and did nothing. Negligence.
3. He knew about the potential damage and offered to fix it if it existed and she declined. We call that Waiver.
4. She failed to sue on the tire for long enough that something else could have caused the blow out. Latches.

You name it, he has every defense in the book.
 
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