Plaintiff Larry Francis Weir filed a complaint against defendant H. A. Simmons for damages

Plaintiff Larry Francis Weir filed a complaint against defendant H. A. Simmons for damages

Introduction

Plaintiff Larry Francis Weir filed a complaint against defendant H. A. Simmons for damages. He sighted personal injuries sustained from the accident that occurred at Heartwell, Nebraska, from the collision between the Plaintiff’s motorcycle and Defendant’s tractor-trailer. The defendant subjectively noted that the plaintiff deliberately caused the accident from his negligence. The plaintiff also sighted negligible offenses that also contributed to the accident, all of which was sternly denied by the defendant.

Considering the pieces of evidence that have been presented, I believe the most significant one would be to assume that there was a risk. The defendant could argue that Mr. King would not have suffered that much when he had worn a protective helmet or gear. Mr. King had severe head injuries because he had chosen not to wear a protective headcover. Had he worn the protective helmet, he could not have been disfigured, shut wired jaw, or had his face reconstructed. The defendant may opt to use this scenario against Mr. King to state that he was fully aware of the dangers of riding a motorcycle without a helmet. He would continue to state that Mr. King assumed the risks and therefore exposed himself to danger. This is the reason that I decided to choose a case that the defenses used included an assumption of risk.

One of the research methods I used in searching Westlaw is using the key terms, which included the assumption of risk, motor vehicle accident, and negligence. I had to search the key terms in all federal states in order to get the exact case I wanted. I managed to find four hundred and sixty-nine cases with the keywords above, and I then decided to narrow the results using the filter options that are available on the Westlaw website. From the four hundred and sixty-nine cases, four hundred and fifty-four were civil cases, but only three hundred and ninety had been reported in different courts. The result was still more, and I needed to narrow down the evidence again. I then decided to add another critical word helmet in my search option and applied the filter option. With this new strategy, I managed to narrow down the results to thirty. Out of the thirty cases, twenty-seven of them were reported civil cases. Again I decided that I should use cases that are of the entire ten years old and therefore ignored facts before 2010. I then remained with three instances where I chose to use McKinley vs. Casson’s case, which used the assumption of risk in court.

Bluebook citation

In October 2009, there was a motor vehicle accident that involved Mr. Robert McKinley and Michele Cason. The accident occurred near Northern Delaware near the summit bridge though there was no death reported. Both Mr. McKinley and Michele Cason were driving through the route of 896 when they got the accident. Because of fear of driving across the bridge, Michele Cason decided to change the lane on the right so as get barricaded by the two massive concrete barrels that had been placed by construction workers to merge the two northbound lanes. Cason presented that she had slowed down to move to the right-wing, but Robert, on the contrary, states that Cason had come to an abrupt stop, which led to the collision with the back of her SUV. Robert, who had no prior headgear at the moment of impact, incurred a series of injuries such as a concussion as a result of the collision.

Mr. Robert filed a negligence suit after recovery in September 2010, asking for damage compensation for the injuries he received from Michele Cason during the accident. Mr. McKinley was not wearing any protective headcover. Although he did not include this in his references, the court indicated that this important aspect of secondary assumption of the risk and therefore denied the motion. This was a serious offense according to the road safety regulations that required all active road users to wear protective covers and take road precautions. Michele Casson also went ahead to accuse McKinley of assuming risk by failing to maintain a safe distance between them in the road. She said that McKinley might have avoided the severe collision if he would not have been so closer to her vehicle.

Eventually, in the light of the trial, the higher court decided that the trial court hadn’t acted accordingly by allowing evidence in favor of McKinley wasn’t wearing a helmet at the moment of collision. The trial court, therefore, decided to rule against Carson for her failure to exhibit excellent care during the accident according to the regulations of changing lanes and the precautions that all road users should take during that process. The court, therefore, ruled in favor of McKinley and said that Casson was more than fifty percent responsible for the accident.

Conclusion

The court usually analyzes every evidence that is brought before them and later deciding on the case according to what the pieces of evidence brought. The trial court found that the main reason why McKinley sustained severe injuries was that he had not worn protective headgears as per the road safety regulations. McKinley decided to take the matter to the superior court, which ruled in his favor and declined the issue of protective cover as the cause of the accident. Road users should be aware of the safety measures and follow them strictly to avoid accidents.