My 78 year old father-in-law was just served papers for a personal
injury lawsuit against him (in Washington State). The accident
happened just over 3 years ago and the plaintiffs appear to have filed
2 weeks before the 3-year statute of limitations ran out. The only
details that we know for sure is that he had a seizure while driving
(with no prior history of seizures) and supposedly hit a woman and her
car that were parked on the shoulder of the freeway. He doesn't
remember hitting anything except a wall. He was under the impression
that the insurance company had taken care of the claim and also that
he didn't ever hit the woman, but may have hit the other car. She
supposedly said after the accident that she was fine and I know for
sure that he would have been heart-broken if he had thought he
actually injured a person, so it came as a surprise to find out that
she was suing for damages and suffered a "partial and permamnt
disability." (We are in the process of contacting an attorney).

Here are my questions:
What are the Washington State negligence principles used to determine
liability for an accident caused by seizure?

Is my father-in-law being sued because the insurance company won't pay
or settle the claim?

If for some reason he is found negligent, what happens? Will he be
forced to pay out his life savings (less than $20,000) or can the
insurance company be forced to pay?

Also, if he had insurance at the time of the accident, but no longer
drives and no longer has insurance, will that accident still be
covered by the insurance company he had at the time?

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Request for Question Clarification by expertlaw-ga on 05 Sep 2003 12:40 PDT

Dear jackih,

Your father-in-law's history of epileptic seizures is relevant to the
answer. For the most focused answer, please indicate if your
father-in-law had a prior history of epilepsy before the accident, how
frequently he experienced seizures prior to the accident, and how the
seizure at the time of the accident compared in severity to prior
seizures (e.g, was this his first-ever grand mal seizure, despite a
history of prior petit mal seizures).

(If you prefer not to disclose that information, a researcher can
probably answer your question in the alternative, although it seems
that the difficulty in finding resources to address all contingencies
may be contributing to the delay in your receipt of an answer.)

Thank you,

- expertlaw

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Clarification of Question by jackih-ga on 05 Sep 2003 14:43 PDT

I think I stated in my question that there was no prior history of
seizures, so he had no way of knowing that he would have one while
driving. I think his doctors said it could have been a seizure or a
"blackout", but in any case, he had nothing prior to suggest that
anything bad would happen while driving. He was put on seizure
medication following the accident and gave up his driver's license.

Dear jackih,

I am sorry that you have not yet received an answer to your inquiry.
Due to the time and logistics involving in researching a
state-specific legal issue, and the fact that I have been crazy-busy,
I've been hoping that another researcher would pick this one up.
(Also, sorry about my brain lapse in the request for clarification - I
could have sworn you had mentioned epilepsy in your original question,
probably because most case law on sudden seizures and traffic
accidents that I have read involve epilepsy, and obviously didn't
re-read it with sufficient attention before I posted.)

Given the time, I want to provide you with a strong suggestion while
you wait for your answer. Specifically, you should track down the
insurance company which covered your father-in-law's vehicle at the
time of the accident, and provide them with a copy of all of the court
papers your father-in-law received. It is important that you do this
soon, as your father-in-law has a limited amount of time to appear and
defend against the suit, and the insurance company may refuse to help
him if he accidentally defaults by not answering on time.

Good luck,

- expertlaw

Expertlaw-ga is correct (as usual).  If your father-in-law was insured
at the time of the accident, it's the job of the insurance company to
take care of this. But the insurer needs to be notified immediately!

Thanks for the comments and advice. We did call the insurance company
and faxed and mailed copies of the papers to them. They said they
would respond to the papers. We also contacted a lawyer and they told
us the same thing, that the insurance company would respond.

I am still curious as to the "what-if" questions from my original
post, like worst case senario or whatever, if anyone has time to
answer. I understand about being busy, beleive me!

Dear jackih,

I don't have the resources necessary to provide a definitive answer to
the first question, at least not without either paying for them online
or spending a couple of hours in a law library. It may be that other
researchers are having similar difficulty providing a definitive
answer. I have been reluctant to comment in more general terms, as
tort law varies between jurisdictions and what may be true for most
states is not necessarily true for Washington state.