Automobile Liability

Daniel D. Krebbs, with support from Osama Samad (all of Philadelphia) secured an outstanding trial result in a Delaware County motor vehicle case where plaintiffs claimed significant injuries from a rear end collision, treated for months, underwent nerve blocks and ablations, and each presented life care plans exceeding $500,000. Their last demand was $98,500 per plaintiff, and they accused the carrier of bad faith failure to settle within limits. During opening statements, the jury audibly reacted when informed that plaintiffs’ medical expert had been paid $1.5 million in 2024 by plaintiffs’ counsel. Liability and causation were admitted, so the trial focused solely on damages. The jury initially returned a zero damages verdict before being instructed to deliberate further. Ten minutes later, they awarded $500 to each plaintiff — a resounding defense win.

We received summary judgment in a vehicular accident case involving disputed liability. Mr. Thurman was the third vehicle in a three-car collision in which the first vehicle admitted fault and was ticketed. Following the accident, the plaintiffs claimed they were in a fourth vehicle and alleged that Mr. Thurman caused the crash. When the claim was denied—and on the eve of the implementation of tort reform—the plaintiffs filed individual lawsuits against Mr. Thurman alone. We subpoenaed the repair shop that serviced Mr. Thurman’s vehicle and obtained records confirming that there was no front-end damage. When the plaintiffs failed to respond to discovery, we prepared motions for summary judgment in both cases. In response, only one plaintiff submitted an affidavit, while Mr. Thurman provided his own affidavit denying the allegations. We argued the motions, demonstrating that the evidence showed the plaintiffs were not involved in the collision and that Mr. Thurman bore no fault. The court ruled in our favor in both cases. Before the orders could be entered, however, the plaintiffs filed notices of voluntary dismissal with prejudice. Before moving for summary judgment, we had served Proposals for Settlement on the plaintiffs and their counsel. After the dismissals, we filed a motion establishing entitlement to attorney’s fees, and the parties ultimately reached an agreement resolving all fees and costs in both cases.

We won summary judgment in a motor vehicle case before the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, Pennsylvania. The plaintiff was in the course and scope of her employment at the time of the vehicle collision. She filed a workers’ compensation claim, and the workers’ compensation judge ultimately determined that her alleged injuries were not related to the motor vehicle accident. The plaintiff appealed that decision to the Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board, which affirmed. In her civil action against the driver and owners of the other vehicle, we asserted that the decision of the workers’ compensation judge acted as collateral estoppel with regard to all claims, thus barring recovery by the plaintiff against our client. The plaintiff argued that the right to a jury trial, as guaranteed under the Pennsylvania Constitution, precluded application of collateral estoppel. The trial court disagreed, finding ample case law to support the application of collateral estoppel in such circumstances, and granted our motion for summary judgment.

We were successful in a Philadelphia arbitration matter, obtaining a defense verdict as to the plaintiff’s claims and an order requiring the co-defendant to reimburse attorneys’ fees. It was undisputed that a motor vehicle accident occurred involving a third-party independent contractor of our client, a prominent homebuilding company. The plaintiff claimed he was a passenger in the vehicle and, accordingly, brought a negligence action against our client, who tendered its defense to the independent contractor based on a contractual provision requiring defense and indemnification. The independent contractor denied the tender. During discovery, it was revealed that the plaintiff falsely claimed he was a passenger in the vehicle. The independent contractor again denied the tender, claiming that its duty to defend was never triggered. The case proceeded to an arbitration where the panel found neither defendant was liable but disagreed with the co-defendant’s arguments regarding defense and indemnity. Accordingly, the arbitration panel entered a judgment in favor of our client and ordered the co-defendant to reimburse all reasonable attorneys’ fees expended defending the action.

We defended a client in a motor vehicle/wrongful death trial in which the jury awarded a much smaller amount than the plaintiff sought. The decedent was rear-ended on the New Jersey Turnpike while driving 9.9 miles per hour at 3 a.m. He was intoxicated, with a blood alcohol level of .095. His car, which was black with black wheels and black tinted windows, was disabled by the collision and came to rest broadside in the left travel lane. A good Samaritan tow truck driver saw the crash and stopped to render assistance. The decedent, who was uninjured in the initial accident, borrowed the tow truck driver’s phone/flashlight and re-entered his car in the left lane. Our client’s truck subsequently hit the disabled car while the decedent was in it. The trial judge refused to allow us to introduce evidence relating to the first accident. The decedent’s contributory negligence in causing the first accident, which put him in peril, was to have been the focus of our defense. Given the surprisingly small verdict, the client indicated that it will likely accept the result. Before trial, the plaintiff’s economist estimated the value of lost services to the family at more than $6 million. The judge dismissed damages relating to two siblings. The jury awarded significantly reduced damages to the decedent’s mother in accordance with the arguments we made.

We successfully defended an appeal of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants in a motor vehicle accident case. The evidence indicated that, at the time of the accident, the plaintiff’s vehicle had stopped while partially merged from a service road onto the main traffic lane when it was struck by our clients’ truck, which was driving on the main lane, on the driver’s side of the plaintiff’s car. On appeal, the plaintiff argued our clients were a proximate cause of the accident. The Appellate Division, First Department rejected the plaintiff’s arguments and unanimously affirmed the trial court’s ruling. The First Department held the plaintiff’s contention, that he was stopped for 5 to 15 seconds before impact, does not change the fact that the defendant driver, who had the right-of-way, was entitled to assume the plaintiff would obey traffic laws and not merge until it was safe to do so. The First Department affirmed that a driver with the right-of-way who only has seconds to react to a failure to yield is not comparatively at fault for an accident.   

We successfully obtained a motion for summary judgment, dismissing our client from a negligence case. We represented a car service which was acting as a rental agent for Avis Rent-A-Car. Our client had repeatedly rented vehicles to the defendant/third-party defendant (renter) in the case. At the time of each rental, the renter would produce a valid driver’s license that was run through a system to confirm its validity. Several days after renting a vehicle to the renter, the renter was involved in a high-speed chase with the Nassau County Police Department. While being pursued by the police, the renter t-boned the plaintiff’s vehicle at an intersection. The plaintiff underwent three surgical procedures involving bleeds to her liver and one procedure to her lung, as well as sustaining a traumatic brain injury, collapsed lung and fractured ribs. After the completion of depositions, we moved for summary judgment to dismiss our client from the litigation as our client was not the owner of the vehicle, nor was there any proof submitted that there was anything mechanically wrong with the vehicle rented to the third-party defendant. We further argued the plaintiffs failed to prove our client’s actions in renting the vehicle could be deemed as a matter of law to be the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries.   

Obtained a defense verdict for our client, a global automobile manufacturer, in a contract dispute in Bucks County, PA. In 2021, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiff purchased a new vehicle for $37,000. Seven months later, the car was involved in a crash caused by the plaintiff's daughter. Repairs for collision damage, which are not covered under the vehicle’s express written warranty, were delayed due to global supply chain disruptions caused by the pandemic. Despite the automobile manufacturer’s efforts to locate, obtain, and expedite delivery of repair parts to the collision repair shop, it took seven months to fully complete the repairs. The plaintiff alleged that the manufacturer violated the implied warranty of merchantability under the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and breached the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, citing the repair delays as the basis for the claims. Ultimately, the court returned a defense verdict, rejecting the plaintiff’s claims.

We successfully defended a tow truck company in an "open and obvious" case in Nassau County, NY. The company had been called to tow a broken-down minibus from the plaintiff’s workplace. While removing the bus, the plaintiff walked between the tow truck and the bus, tripped over the tow rope, and broke his hip. The defense relied on precedent from a similar Nassau County case where a judge ruled that a tow rope was an open and obvious condition, with no duty to warn. Although the trial judge denied his motion for a directed verdict, she allowed him to argue to the jury that the defendant had no duty to warn. Plaintiff’s counsel did not object. In summation, we emphasized that the condition was open and obvious and urged dismissal. The jury deliberated for just 15 minutes before returning a verdict for the defendant.

We obtained summary judgment after oral argument with Judge Anne Swern in Kings County Supreme Court in New York. This case involved a motor vehicle accident where the plaintiff was a backseat passenger in an Uber that rear-ended a vehicle owned and operated by our clients. We established that our clients were stopped for 10-15 seconds at a light when they were rear-ended by the Uber driver, who was precluded and could not submit any testimony in this matter. Further, by establishing that the plaintiff was asleep at the time, she could not offer any evidence of how the accident happened. 

We obtained a defense verdict following a compulsory arbitration in a motor vehicle pileup. The plaintiff alleged that while she was stopped in traffic, the co-defendant’s vehicle rear ended her, pushing her into the vehicle in front of her. To the contrary, the co-defendant contended that our client caused the entire accident by being the first to rear-end his vehicle, pushing him into the plaintiff’s vehicle just once. Despite the conflicting testimony, we convinced the arbitration panel that, although our client was involved in the accident, the plaintiff testified the first strike she felt from the co-defendant’s vehicle was harder, and that the impact caused by her client’s vehicle was minimal due to the lack of damage to her vehicle. The arbitration panel assigned no liability to our client.

We obtained a defense verdict in a case involving medical and property damages. While riding a bicycle through a shopping center parking lot, the plaintiff collided with our client, who was driving a vehicle, at an intersection that did not have stop signs. The plaintiff alleged that our client was responsible for his medical damages, as well as property damage to his bike and clothing. At the hearing, we obtained testimony from the plaintiff that his medical bills had been full covered by his health insurance, and that he could not demonstrate that the alleged property damage stemmed from the incident at hand. The judge agreed and granted a defense verdict.

We obtained a favorable decision dismissing all claims and cross-claims brought against a car rental company in a motor vehicle accident case in Philadelphia. The plaintiff’s complaint alleged several injuries, and she sued several defendants, including our client, the rental car company that owned one of the vehicles involved in the accident. Citing to the rental agreement and the policies covering the rental vehicle, we argued that the car rental driver was not authorized to operate the vehicle as he rented the vehicle under false pretenses, permitted an unauthorized driver to operate the vehicle, and operated the vehicle for hire in violation of the policies. The court ruled in our client’s favor, finding there was no coverage under the policies pursuant to the policy language and Pennsylvania case law. 

The arbitration panel found in favor of the defendant in a motor vehicle accident case where the plaintiff was driving a dump truck and claimed he was side-swiped by a tractor-trailer. The plaintiff filed suit against the driver of the tractor-trailer and his employer, both of whom were represented by Marshall Dennehey. It was the defendants’ position that the plaintiff was not side-swiped, but that the plaintiff actually rear-ended the tractor-trailer because he was going too fast to stop as the tractor-trailer moved from the right lane into the left lane. At the arbitration, plaintiff’s counsel attempted to introduce photographs that were not produced in discovery and were only shown by the plaintiff to his attorney the morning of the arbitration. Plaintiff’s counsel also attempted to enter into evidence the police report. We were successful in getting both items of evidence precluded. The key piece of evidence was that the plaintiff admitted, both in his written responses to discovery and during his testimony, that he first noticed the defendant’s vehicle merging into his lane when the defendant’s vehicle was 30-40 feet ahead of him.

We prevailed in a jury trial on a UM claim in Hillsborough County’s 13th Judicial Circuit. The plaintiff claimed he suffered permanent and debilitating injuries in a rear-end collision in Tampa, Florida. Liability was admitted, but the extent of the plaintiff’s injuries was in dispute. The plaintiff asked the jury to award him $500,000 for past and future damages.  The jury found there was no permanent injury and awarded $25,000 for past medical expenses only.

The plaintiff claimed she sustained serious head and neck injuries following a two-car motor vehicle accident. At trial, we demonstrated that the plaintiff’s alleged injuries were largely related to pre-accident and degenerative medical conditions. The defense also highlighted the fact this was the plaintiff’s third personal injury lawsuit in a 15-year span. On the day of trial, the plaintiffs reduced their demand from $85,000 to $75,000. At the conclusion of trial, the jury returned a verdict of only $4,000.

Our attorneys successfully obtained summary judgment on behalf of a car dealership. The dealership rented a vehicle to the co-defendant, who was having his personal vehicle serviced at the dealership. The co-defendant was involved in an auto accident with the plaintiff while operating the dealership’s rental. The plaintiff was operating a motorcycle, and significant damages were alleged. The defense team filed a motion for summary judgment pursuant to the Graves Amendment, which states that an owner of a motor vehicle, who rents a vehicle to a person, shall not be vicariously liable for harm to persons or property that arises out of the use or operation of that vehicle during the period of the rental, so long as certain additional criteria is met. The court agreed with our arguments raised in the motion and dismissed our client with prejudice.

Marshall Dennehey’s appellate attorneys filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Pennsylvania Defense Institute and Pennsylvania Association of Defense Counsel in a case pending in the Pennsylvania Superior Court that involved interpretation of a “regular use” exclusion that commonly appears in underinsured motorist coverage in automobile policies. The Superior Court enforced the exclusion, as PDI and PADC had requested. The plaintiff regularly used a company vehicle for his daily work. But one or two days before the accident, the specific vehicle he had been driving was taken out of service for repairs, and his employer rented a replacement vehicle for the plaintiff’s use. The insurer denied the UIM claim, based on the “regular use” exclusion, because the plaintiff was driving a company vehicle, which was his regular practice. The plaintiff countered that the vehicle he was operating at the time of the accident had not, in fact, been made “regularly” available to him because he only began using it a day or two prior. Relying on its prior decision in Brink v. Erie Ins. Group, 940 A.2d 528 (Pa. Super. 2008), which held that the “regular use” exclusion properly barred coverage for a plaintiff injured in a “fleet vehicle,” even though the plaintiff may have driven a different specific vehicle each day, the Rawl court held that the employer’s temporary rental of a replacement vehicle triggered application of the “regular use” exclusion and barred coverage. “Stated simply,” Rawl explains, “it does not matter whether Mr. Rawl had regular use of a particular vehicle furnished by his employer, but whether he regularly used a vehicle supplied by his employer.” The court, therefore, affirmed the trial court’s award of summary judgment to the carrier.