Parking Lot Collision

[hapd87]

Hello, my name is Peter and i live in Los Angeles, CA.

i just had a parking lot collision few weeks from today. I was heading toward the exit gate of parking lot. But all of a sudden, a mini van enters the parking lot and WITHOUT stopping and signals, makes a left turn to park in his space. I did not know that he was going to make a left turn to park, because he DID NOT give the signal also he DID NOT slow down. We made an agreement that on his expense, he'll pay for the damage of my car. But for weeks, he did not give me any calls about the repair and when i got hold of him today, he said he will not pay for the damage because its not 100% his fault. His explanation was that collision happened when both of us were moving. I did not understand this so i found this site to humbly ask for a legalistic help. Thank you for reading my case and please if you have any info about this kind of case, do not hesitate to leave feedback. Thank you once again. -PETER HA

ps. my email is peter_hahaha@hotmail.com
if you have any questions or info, please dont hesitate to ask. Thank you

 

[NYClex]

The law basically says this: If both parties are negligent, they will have to bear that portion of damage, that corresponds with the portion of their fault. Or in other words:

Joe drives along Highway with 70 mph though there is a 55 mph legal limit. Jill drives on the same highway in the opposite direction, and makes a left turn into Main Street. Both collide in the middle of the intersection.

Now Jill obviously has been negligent, since someone who makes a left turn should yield to oncoming traffic. But Joe also has been negligent, because if he had been driving 55 mph instead of 7o he would have been able to stop in time (let us assume that this has been proven).

Joe sues Jill for his damage.

There was a time when the law said: Joe, because you were negligent, too, you will be barred from recovering anything from Jill. This was called the doctrine of contributory negligence.

Then people thought this was too harsh. The doctrine was abolished in most states and replaced by the doctrine of comparative negligence. It holds that, if both parties cannot agree, a jury will have to decide who was how much at fault.

Let us assume that a jury here thinks Joe was 40% at fault and Jill 60%. The result is that Joe will recover 60% of his damage from Jill.

The trend is nowadays that courts almost always find some fault on both sides in a traffic collision, especially since the law demands that you have to expect negligent behavior by other drivers and to be extra careful.

So in your case it would need to be established who was at fault and how much. The other party cannot simply walk away from the accident because he claims you were negligent as well.

You would have to check if your state is a no-fault state, though. No fault state rules are different.