Drunk Drivers Have No Responsibility For Causing Injuries In Michigan
Did you know that Drunk Drivers in the State of Michigan have no responsiblity to innocent victims that they injure?
That is precisely the way our No-Fault Law is being interpreted by many of your Michigan Judges. In Gagne v. Schulte, Court of Appeals No. 264788 (Decided 2/28/06) a drunk driver defendant, turned his truck into oncoming traffic and hit plaintiff’s vehicle head on. The impact threw plaintiff into the windshield. Her torso bent the steering wheel, and her knee slammed into the dashboard. She suffered a concussion, lost consciousness, and was rushed to a nearby medical center.
For the first few weeks after the accident, plaintiff could barely move about even with crutches, and her father assisted her with such tasks as getting to the bathroom and the bathtub. An MRI revealed a torn ACL and meniscus in her knee requiring major reconstructive surgery.
When her surgeon followed up with plaintiff, he detected serious muscle atrophy in plaintiff’s right quadriceps, which further destabilized her knee. The dangers of this loss of support around her knee led doctors to continue the limitations on plaintiff’s activities until the muscles regained their strength. Plaintiff went to physical therapy to rebuild the muscle, but when plaintiff returned more than seven months after surgery, her surgeon still did not feel her muscles had strengthened enough that she was ready to return to work. According to the surgeon, “even things like descending stairs are difficult for patients with quad atrophy, very difficult, and such that the knee will feel like it wants to buckle or give out, and at times it may, producing a higher chance of further injury.”
Because Plaintiff was only twenty-one years old at the time of the head-on collision, was hobbled indefinitely by the torn ACL and meniscus, was forced to undergo major surgery,and had permanently lost a measure of stability in her knee, Plaintiff sued the drunk driver to pay for the harm he caused her.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ignored all of this and decided to protect the drunk driver rather than the innocent victim and threw the case out of court, leaving the victim without any recourse and allowing the drunk driver to escape any responsbility for his actions.
If you want our laws to stop protecting drunk drivers, please contact your legislative representatives by clicking here for a directory. There are several bills pending to address this issue but so far, the leaders in the legislature have been stalling their passage.
That is precisely the way our No-Fault Law is being interpreted by many of your Michigan Judges. In Gagne v. Schulte, Court of Appeals No. 264788 (Decided 2/28/06) a drunk driver defendant, turned his truck into oncoming traffic and hit plaintiff’s vehicle head on. The impact threw plaintiff into the windshield. Her torso bent the steering wheel, and her knee slammed into the dashboard. She suffered a concussion, lost consciousness, and was rushed to a nearby medical center.
For the first few weeks after the accident, plaintiff could barely move about even with crutches, and her father assisted her with such tasks as getting to the bathroom and the bathtub. An MRI revealed a torn ACL and meniscus in her knee requiring major reconstructive surgery.
When her surgeon followed up with plaintiff, he detected serious muscle atrophy in plaintiff’s right quadriceps, which further destabilized her knee. The dangers of this loss of support around her knee led doctors to continue the limitations on plaintiff’s activities until the muscles regained their strength. Plaintiff went to physical therapy to rebuild the muscle, but when plaintiff returned more than seven months after surgery, her surgeon still did not feel her muscles had strengthened enough that she was ready to return to work. According to the surgeon, “even things like descending stairs are difficult for patients with quad atrophy, very difficult, and such that the knee will feel like it wants to buckle or give out, and at times it may, producing a higher chance of further injury.”
Because Plaintiff was only twenty-one years old at the time of the head-on collision, was hobbled indefinitely by the torn ACL and meniscus, was forced to undergo major surgery,and had permanently lost a measure of stability in her knee, Plaintiff sued the drunk driver to pay for the harm he caused her.
The Michigan Court of Appeals ignored all of this and decided to protect the drunk driver rather than the innocent victim and threw the case out of court, leaving the victim without any recourse and allowing the drunk driver to escape any responsbility for his actions.
If you want our laws to stop protecting drunk drivers, please contact your legislative representatives by clicking here for a directory. There are several bills pending to address this issue but so far, the leaders in the legislature have been stalling their passage.
posted by Neil Davis, Esq. at
2:56 PM
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