When Is a Company Liable for Injuries?

When you have been injured in an accident with someone who was on the job, your first thought should always be whether you can sue the company that they were working for at the time, and your first call should be to a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer.

If you have been in an accident with another driver who was on the job at the time of the crash, you may be able to file a lawsuit against the company that employed them. For injured drivers, this is often the best-case scenario because a company will have more insurance coverage and deeper pockets to pay any judgment. It is important to let a Las Vegas personal injury lawyer evaluate all of the liable parties in your case.

Why Is the Company Liable?

When a business employs someone else, the person who they hire can be considered an agent of that company. In other words, the company is not allowed to reap the benefit of someone else’s services without sharing in the liability for their improper actions. The general rule is that companies are vicariously liable for the actions of their agents when those people are acting within the scope of their agency.

For your purposes, this means that absent some exceptions, the company is responsible for the acts of their employees. If you are suing the company, the court will likely ask these questions:

• Was the employee on the job when the accident happened?
• Were the events that led to the accident part of the employee’s regular job?
• Did the employee intentionally commit the harm that led to your injury?

There are many scenarios where you can be injured by a worker on the job. The most common is when you are in an accident with a truck being driven by a company driver. The same is true when you are involved in crashes with other delivery drivers. Anyone who is working on company time performing their job duties may make their company legally responsible when they injure you.

Companies Are Only Liable for the Actions of Employees

One thing to keep in mind is that a company may not be held liable when it has an independent contractor working on its behalf. For instance, Uber drivers and certain truck drivers may not be company employees in the strict legal sense. They are working for themselves. Accordingly, there is no company that can be held liable, even if they have the Uber or Lyft name displayed in their window.

Besides being liable for their employee’s torts, companies may also be responsible for bad acts under a negligent hiring theory. This means that the employer should have properly screened the employee before hiring or should have fired them when they learned that the worker posed a danger. This is particularly true when a company keeps a driver on staff that they know has racked up a poor driving record.

Contact a Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer for Help

If you have been injured in an accident with someone who was on the job or was harmed by a company employee in any way, you may be entitled to financial compensation. Contact a Las Vegas car accident lawyer at the firm of Breeden Malpractice & Injury Law online or call us at (702) 744-9427 to schedule your risk-free initial consultation.