Governmental entities in Indiana have a duty to exercise reasonable care to keep roadways and sidewalks reasonably safe for travel. However, governmental entities also enjoy immunity under certain circumstances. In two recent cases dealing with governmental immunity for losses caused by temporary conditions of roadways resulting from weather, the Indiana…
The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit recently requested the Indiana Supreme Court address two questions through a process known as certification of questions. Both Seventh Circuit Rule 52(a) and Indiana Rule of Appellate Procedure 64 recognize federal courts may seek guidance from a state’s highest court…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of Eric McGowen (“McGowen”) in a counterclaim filed by Bradley Montes (“Montes”) for injuries Montes suffered when he rear-ended McGowen’s semi-truck, which was stopped on a county road while McGowen was attempting to assist another motorist who had been involved in…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a property owner finding it had no duty to the traveling public as a result of tall grass on its property. In Reece v. Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., a 92-year-old motorist, Harold Moistner…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently held in Parkview Hosp. Inc. v. Am. Family Ins. Co. that a hospital was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on its hospital lien claim against an automobile insurance company that paid settlement funds directly to an injured party pursuant to an…
We previously wrote about an Indiana Court of Appeals case in which the court reversed a trial court’s judgment on a jury verdict of $40,000 for a plaintiff in a truck accident case and remanded the case for a new trial based upon the trial court’s giving of a failure…
As injury lawyers representing victims of car crashes, one of the most common causes of car accidents we see in police reports is that the at-fault driver was texting or reached down to retrieve a dropped phone. These common car crash causes should vanish if drivers follow Indiana’s new hands-free…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently affirmed a jury verdict in favor of a defendant in an Indiana car accident case. In Cook v. Beeman, the Plaintiff, Edward Cook, was driving west on Tenth Street in Jeffersonville, Indiana and collided with a vehicle being driven north on Allison Lane by…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently resolved a dispute as to the availability of underinsured coverage in an Indiana motor vehicle accident case. In Catanzarite v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Indiana, the Plaintiff, Christine Catanzarite, suffered severe injuries when another driver, Timothy Smith, turned his vehicle in front of her…
The Indiana Court of Appeals recently issued another decision reversing a trial court for giving a failure-to-mitigate jury instruction in an Indiana car accident case. We had previously written about a similar decision in Humphrey v. Tuck. In this case, Harris v. Jones, the Plaintiff, Marlo Harris, was rear-ended on…