For today's article we have several real life rollover accidents. The first is a 16-year-old driver (Beth Opperman) who is said to have suffered only non-life-threatening types of injuries. The Fayette County Sheriff's Office spokesperson described the accident for the WCR Courier as a single vehicle accident where she lost control of her driving on L. Avenue north of 110^th Street, entered the ditch and the vehicle rolled. There is no discussion as to why or if anyone else was in the Ford Ranger truck. She's just 16 and probably inexperienced so we'll leave it at that. 

A second roll-over car accident takes place in Chamberlain, S.D. reportedly killing a northwest Iowa man, Leon Contreras of Estherville, Iowa. The driver is described as 37-year-old Ramon Castillo; neither man is described as wearing a seatbelt, although no details are given about what happened to cause the accident.

The third rollover accident takes place in Wyoming; it involves an oil field worker out of Gillette, Wyoming. The man was involved in a rollover accident where he broke his neck, was taken to the hospital complaining of neck pain and the hospital staff failed to discovery he had a broken neck. He suffered permanent nerve damage because of the delay of two days in diagnosing a broken neck. A malpractice case was filed and the jury returned a $9 million verdict. The man is reported to be Louis Prager of Montana.

As you can see each of these rollover case is different; no two are ever the same. In the first you have one young driver who could be considered the at-fault driver and with no passengers she would have the only claim. She would file with her own insurance company under the medical pay section of her policy. Beyond getting paid medical bills there is nothing to be paid for personal injury. In the second accident the passenger's estate (he is reported to have died) would file a claim with the driver's auto insurance company and if he has low limits of coverage he may also file with the passenger underinsured motorist coverage policy. Of course if the driver is uninsured and the passenger had automobile insurance then his estate's administrator will file under the uninsured motorist coverage. In the third accident the oil service field worker was in the course of his employment at the time of his rollover accident so he would have several avenues to consider for personal injury coverage.

First is the workers' compensation insurance and that's an easy one.

The second depends on whether he was forced off the road by another car or not. If so then there is a third-party case against the at-fault driver and owner of the at-fault car.

The next claim as you can see had to do with his claim of receiving shoddy treatment that fell below the standard of care in Wyoming. So there you have it three different rollover accidents with three different results and places to file insurance claims. And you wonder why they call this "the practice of law"? Not the operative word is practice.