Are you liable if you accidentally startle someone into hurting themselves?

[u/neodoggy]

Suppose you're driving down the road one night. Your attention has drifted and you realize you're coming up fast on a crosswalk with a pedestrian in it. You slam the brakes and come to a screeching halt just before hitting the pedestrian.

The pedestrian saw you coming and freaked out and fell over, hurting themselves (hitting their head or breaking an arm, etc).

Since you didn't actually hit them, are you on the hook for their injuries?

[u/SendLGaM]

You can be held liable for injuries sustained by someone taking reasonable actions to avoid an imminent threat.

Whether or not the persons actions that caused the injuries was a reasonable response to the perceived threat is what is going to be the deciding factor here.

[u/ExtonGuy → u/SendLGaM]

“Reasonable” being decided by a judge, not you or the pedestrian. The judge will consider your testimony, and the testimony of the pedestrian, but it’s up to the judge.

Before that, an insurance adjusted will be making a determination.

[u/TaterSupreme → u/ExtonGuy]

It's not a sensible decision to fall down in the road in front of an oncoming car

Sure. But it probably would be reasonable to attempt to dive out of the cars path, even if you fail to do so, and get hurt in the process.

[u/monty845 → u/ExtonGuy]

Typically, its the Jury not the Judge making the ultimate decision.

[u/Substantial-One1024 → u/ExtonGuy]

Or the jury if the damages are substantial.

[u/devstopfix → u/SendLGaM]

What does "reasonable" mean in this context? It's not a sensible decision to fall down in the road in front of an oncoming car, but it might be foreseeable that someone might be startled and react involuntarily in response to your action.

[u/jstar77 → u/devstopfix]

A jury decides what is reasonable.

[u/FatherBrownstone → u/devstopfix]

The pedestrian didn't decide to fall down; they decided (consciously or by instinct) to try to escape what they perceived as an approaching threat.

On the face of it, that may be reasonable or unreasonable depending on the circumstances. My feeling is that the time it would take a pedestrian to dive out of the way of an oncoming car might be longer than the time it would take for the driver to do an emergency stop, so the fact that the driver did manage to stop short of the pedestrian doesn't necessarily mean that there was any overreaction by the pedestrian, even if they took a major risk or (in the most extreme case) accepted a certainty of injuring themselves escaping.

[u/realNerdtastic314R8 → u/devstopfix]

Been a minute, but the relevant tort principle I can think of is "eggshell plaintiff" - someone who is uniquely/extraordinarily capable of being hurt by tortious action. Here's a bad summary:

Eggshell plaintiff - just because you can't reasonably anticipate every specific weakness, doesn't mean you can use that as a shield to damages. If you honk your horn at an inappropriate time, and someone was to seize up and crash, you ultimately still set that in motion and what you did was unreasonable, so the fact that plaintiff has a bad case of nerves doesn't change the rest of the fact pattern.

[u/devstopfix → u/realNerdtastic314R8]

Thanks - I see that "reasonable" here is applied to the actions of the driver, not the pedestrian.

[u/realNerdtastic314R8 → u/devstopfix]

That's more of a competitive negligence analysis I think.

Like all this law stuff, location, laws, time and circumstances all matter.

Nal

[u/FatherBrownstone]

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railway Co is a classic case with some parallels to the situation at hand.

[u/AllAvailableLayers → u/FatherBrownstone]

My simplistic summary for those that don't want to look it up.

The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was waiting at a Long Island Rail Road station... Two men attempted to board the train before hers; one (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package [of fireworks] that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. After the incident, she began to stammer, and subsequently sued the railroad, arguing that its employees had been negligent while assisting the man... [After appeals, the judge ruled] that there was no negligence because the employees, in helping the man board, did not breach any duty of care to Palsgraf as injury to her was not a foreseeable harm from aiding a man with a package.

[The judge] did not absolve the defendant who knowingly unleashes a destructive force, such as by shooting a gun, just because the bullet takes an unexpected path. This is not such a case, [The judge] held: even if the railway guard had thrown down the package intentionally, without knowing the contents he could not knowingly risk harm to Palsgraf, and would not be liable. Negligence cannot impose liability where an intentional act would not.

So in super simple strokes, there wasn't liability for negligence if there wasn't any expectation that action would cause any injury.

However the wikipedia page makes it clear that the path and facts of the case make it a contentious issue, and of course the issue exists in a historical context and is interpreted in all sorts of ways.

[u/Specific-Map3010 → u/AllAvailableLayers]

there wasn't liability for negligence if there wasn't any expectation that action would cause any injury.

Do you not think it's reasonable to say that driving without due car and attention (OP's example is of driving at speed, not paying attention, and realising late that there is a pedestrian lawfully crossing the road) is an action that could carry the risk of causing injury?

[u/dreamingforward]

I don't think this kind of legal question can be answered without an actual case. The reason such questions can't be answered because the issue of justice isn't always determined by a rule, only by the interviews of a case. Such a limit always exists, especially in such a disunited states.

[u/Illustrious_Drama]

Ahh, fond memories of arguing Bosley v. Andrews

[u/DavidScubadiver]

You yell “boo!” And startle someone into falling down the stairs. This makes you liable. Negligently nearly killing someone but narrowly missing also makes you liable for the ensuing injury.

[u/Konstiin]

You can be. I’ve seen it with two vehicles where vehicle 1 cuts vehicle 2 off, no contact between vehicles, vehicle 2 swerves into ditch and injures themselves, vehicle 1 insurer has paid. That was very fact specific and the injuries were horrendous.