Hi,
Cut a long story short, my only brother was killed a while back - an employee of a company, on a paid company job, in the middle of the working day, in a company vehicle ran him over, killing him. Through a long and painful process this employee has been found guilty of 'Dangerous Driving Causing Death' plus other offences (which included testing positive to an illegal drug at the scene of the accident).
My brother had no dependants but his death has and I can't emphasise this enough, gutted my elderly mother - who doted on him from birth as he was borderline special needs in many ways.
Her marriage broke down and she was in financial distress. I've recommended she initiate a civil suit against the employer's public liability insurer and use the funds to rebuild her life and do good things in my dead brother's memory.
I SEEK NO MONEY MYSELF whatsoever.
I'm wondering if folks have experience in such matters - given the facts of the case are already largely established via the criminal case company employee in company car killing a citizen. Just general experiences or tips in negotiating & initiating with Civil Suit lawyers?
FWIW the state of the employer of the driver & location of accident is Victoria. The company seems to have changed names or ceased trading but they will have had public liability insurance at the time of the incident, without going into it too much they were in a field were it would have been mandatory.
Thank you in advance for your feedback if you've experience in such areas. :-)
EDIT: As I am a complete layperson I expressed my thought that it seemed a clear liability case, but others have said this is or may not be the case. Thus I have corrected and removed this so as not to derail matters.
I am seeking general experiences in dealing with and selecting Lawyers in this area ONLY - i.e should she select a lawyer who lives close to her (in NSW) or one who lives close to the incident (in Victoria)?
There is no such thing when it comes to matters of the law, trust me.
It may seem clear cut, but this won't be a "turn up to a court room for 2 days" sort of deal. This will cost you tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees and months (years) of courtroom appearances and angst.
Sounds like you want to file a civil suit against the COMPANY and not the PERSON? How big is the company? They can probably afford better lawyers than you and can drag it out.
You mention that the employee was found guilty but didn't mention anything about the company. I'm guessing the company was found to not be negligent in the case, so in a civil suit, how will you prove that? A company isn't just willy nilly liable for anything an employee does. If this guy was strung out on drugs when he did this and it wasn't related to his employment then it's nothing to do with the COMPANY.
And if you did file a civil suit against the EMPLOYEE then do they even have any money or would they just declare bankruptcy?
Honestly, if your mother is this torn up about what's happened already, a civil suit that may not even win could do more harm than good.
Again, this doesn't magically make the company liable and I'm guessing this was found out during the case brought forth by the Crown because, again, you said the employee was found negligent not the company.
I've bore witness to both sides of Crown and civil suits related to similar things with companies and employees either causing harm or being harmed/killed. These cases are anything but simple and the people that generally end up winning are the lawyers.