Who’s Responsible when you get into a Collision in a Work Vehicle

In Massachusetts, the members of one family were holding their breath into the New Year as their daughter, 13, fought for her life in a hospital after a drunk driver crashed into the car she was in.

The crash, which happened Sunday morning, killed Kendall Zemotel’s father and another 13-year-old girl in the car, according to an NBC news report. The driver, Gregory Goodsell, told police he knew he was too drunk to drive. He was coming from a party thrown by his boss and was driving a truck marked Hi-Way Safety Systems, a road construction contracting company.

While the main concern is the girl’s recovery and the family’s recovery, there will likely be questions about who is responsible: the driver or the company?

Employee or contractor?

The first thing to consider is whether the driver is actually an employee of the company or a contractor. Generally, a company is not responsible for the actions of an independent contractor, who is contracted for work on a temporary basis but is not an official employee of the company.

An employee, on the other hand, may be a liability for the company if he or she causes a collision in a work vehicle. However, that depends on what the employee was doing at the time of the crash. If they were doing their job or on their way to a job, the employer may be liable. However, if they were on a personal trip, it may be the employee who is responsible.

If the driver was on work business, though, the driver may still have some responsibility for the accident if they were at fault. Typically, car insurance companies and courts will consider what the employee was doing if he or she was at fault. Negligent driving—such as looking at a cell phone, turning the wrong way onto a one-way street, or broadly making a move that a reasonable driver would not—is a common way for crashes to happen. In this instance, an employee and employer will likely be held responsible for the collision.

In general, employers may be held liable for an employee’s actions while on work business through the doctrine of respondeat superior, a legal doctrine that holds employers responsible for the wrongful actions of an employee. The considerations include whether an employee’s activities on an employer’s premises after hours benefit the employer, or whether the employee’s action is common enough for that job that the action is fairly deemed to be characteristic of the job. In the case of a car accident, it would be the second, as long as the job description included driving and they were acting within the scope of their employment.

Whose car is it?

In many cases, employers have work-specific vehicles that employees take to various sites, such as repair trucks, commuting vehicles, or police cars. However, in other cases, an employee may drive his or her own vehicle to various job sites.

Most companies carry insurance that covers incidents that occur while an employee is driving a company car. Because it covers the vehicle and employees that drive it for work purposes, employees on work business who are driving and get into a collision will likely be covered .

It’s a little more complicated if the employee is driving their own vehicle. For one, they typically have their own insurance on the vehicle, but because they are driving it for work purposes, the law may hold the employer responsible for damages arising from the incident. In other cases, personal insurance may not cover damages from an accident resulting from a work trip if the insurance does not have a clause covering some business use, which could leave the employee holding the bag for damages.

Personal insurance can include what is called a business “rider” if the personal vehicle will be used for business trips regularly. On some occasions, employers may help cover the cost of a business “rider” for its employees.

Alternatively, businesses may also have a type of commercial insurance that broadly covers vehicles driven for company business. If so, the employer can provide a copy of the policy to the employee, which will cover damages during business driving, but not during commuting times.

In cases like the one in Massachusetts this holiday season, there are no winners. It only gets worse once parties start arguing about who is responsible for the damage. In the event you or a loved one are involved in a collision with a company vehicle, it’s always good practice to get the advice of an attorney to research the potential avenues of recovery, which can give you peace of mind going forward.