Owner Liability/CA

[grumble]

What is the name of your state? CA

What is the name of your state?

In CA can a car owner be sued when the liabilty of bodily injury involves another driver whom he has added to his policy? Incidently, the driver is the 19 yr. old daughter of the insured. Assuming the daughter has no assets and was not drinking, or using a cell phone, but made an improper left turn into oncoming traffic using lane 1 of the road and did not use the left turn lane provided. The accident cause great bodily injury and their insurance is settling for maximum policy limits. But would the injured party be better off accepting these limits knowing that the driver, a teenager does not have resources for recouping damages. Or my question may be, how much is the car owner responsible for the accident if the driver other than the owner of the vehicle which is also covered under the insureds policy.

 

[ecmst12]

The owner CAN be sued, but if that happens your insurance company will provide for your defense. Anyone can be sued for anything and in auto lawsuits they tend to name everyone (owner and driver) just in case. The owner would have no real liability though, unless he was somehow negligent contributing towards the accident. For example, if the accident happened because the brakes failed, and the owner knew the brakes were bad and did not get them fixed but let someone else drive the car anyway, he could possible share some liability. But in the case you describe, the owner wouldn't be liable for anything and since he has insurance, no need to worry about being named in a lawsuit.

 

[moburkes]

How much underinsured motorist coverage did the not at fault injured person have?

 

[grumble]

Thank you for the replies. I just wanted to get some feedback as my atty believes that accepting the policy limits which are 100,000. was the best thing to do. As you mentioned the owner can't be held responsible unless they can prove he knowingly let an intoxicated or irresponsible person drive the car. This can be hard to prove. Court costs in proving this claim and collecting from a teenager would most likely be uneventful. Even though medical costs by the injured have almost superceded the policy limits.