Lexington, NC — A woman was killed after being involved in two accidents near Lexington, Kentucky, on Sunday, October 5, 2014. The accident happened on Interstate 85, around 5:00 in the morning.
Police say that Rena Little was traveling with her son, Jeffrey, when they were hit by another vehicle being driven by Adam Ballard. Police say that Ballard was traveling faster than Little and failed to control his speed.
Both vehicles stopped on the roadway, and Jeffrey Little got out of his car to check on Ballard. While they were stopped, a tracor-trailer being driven by Robert Winstead collided with Little’s vehicle, dragging it a short way down the road.
Rena Little was killed in the accident. Reports say that police are still investigating and that no charges have been filed.
Scene of the Accident
Commentary
From what’s been reported, as they were on a doughnut tire, the LittleS had a good reason to be driving slowly. Also, there is no minimum speed on most interstates. Because of this, the vehicle that rear-ended them would more than likely bear liability for the initial accident for all the obvious reasons. Whether or not the first vehicle will be found liable for the woman’s death depends on whether or not a separate act of negligence was committed by the driver of the tractor-trailer. Such a separate act would be called a “new intervening cause.” Let’s examine a few hypotheticals. Let’s say that the first crash took out the Little’s taillights, and/or positioned their vehicle in such a way that the approaching tractor-trailer couldn’t see them. If that’s the case, then the truck driver didn’t do anything wrong, and a jury would most likely blame the first driver for setting the entire string of events into motion. In another scenario, the first vehicle hits the Littles, but the truck driver can or should be able to see their vehicle on the interstate, unless he isn’t paying attention. If that is the case, then the truck driver would be liable for the victim’s death, and this new intervening cause would absolve the first driver from any wrongdoing beyond the property damage caused in the initial accident.
How do we determine which of these scenarios is more likely? In my judgement, it’s going to come down to electronic data and the skid marks from the tractor-trailer. What I mean is, even if the Little’s vehicle had no lights warning the truck driver that it was sitting in the middle of the interstate, even if there were no streetlights, there would eventually come a point when the truck’s own headlights would have shown the driver exactly what was ahead of him. If electronic data from the truck, or skid marks on the road indicate that the truck driver did try and take some evasive maneuvers to avoid the accident, a jury is probably going to say that he did all he could, and was ultimately just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But if instead the evidence shows that he did nothing to avoid the accident, this would show a jury that it wasn’t a lack of lighting that caused the crash, but was a case of the truck driver not paying attention. Finally, if the evidence shows that the car’s lights were still functional, then that would be even more of an indication that the truck driver should have seen what was in front of him. As you can see, these details could possibly have a big impact on the legal implications here, which only goes to show how important it is that a proper investigation be conducted so that what actually happened here can be brought to light.
— Grossman Law Offices
