If a bike courier hits you, the agency who hired them may be liable.
In many cities across the United States, bike messengers are a common site. Whether they are delivering important documents, flowers or food, these couriers are a necessary part of daily life in places were traffic makes moving things by car difficult.
While bike messengers make life easier in many ways, the sheer number of bikes on the road can make for a lot more collisions between bikes and pedestrians, bikes and cars, and bikes with other bikes. This raises the question of who exactly is responsible when a bike courier is involved in an accident with someone else.
If the bike courier is an employee of an agency and was engaged in a delivery — whether en route to a destination or coming back from a delivery — then he or she may be covered by his employer’s workers’ compensation coverage. But there are situations where workers’ compensation coverage simply isn’t enough — or where the bike courier may want to file a lawsuit against a driver or other person who hit him or her. In that case, the bike courier may still file a lawsuit against the person who hit him, and the workers’ compensation insurer may then be able to recover from the proceeds of that lawsuit.
But if it was the bike messenger who caused the accident, then it isn’t a question of workers’ compensation — but of liability insurance. If the courier is an employee (rather than an independent contractor) of the agency, then the person who was hit may want to file a lawsuit against the agency, as that business is likely to have greater financial resources than the individual messenger. Alternatively, coverage may be available under the courier’s homeowner’s, renter’s or other specialty insurance policy. Any number of people could potentially file a lawsuit under this type of claim, such as a driver whose car was damaged by a careless bike messenger who ran into his door, a pedestrian who suffered injuries when a bike courier knocked him over, a shop owner whose window was broken when a bike messenger crashed into it, or another cyclist who was hurt when a bike messenger collided with him.
As you can see, determining who to sue — and how to go about filing a lawsuit — can be complicated when one of the parties involved is a bike messenger. There may be complicated layers of employer-employee relationships and insurance policies to unravel. As skilled bike accident lawyers, the attorneys of the Law Offices of Larry H. Parker are here to help victims of all types of bike accidents. Contact us today at 800-333-0000 or info@larryhparker.com to schedule a free initial consultation. We have helped more than 100,000 people recover more than $2 billion dollars in compensation for their injuries. With more than 40 years of experience and a 95% success rate, we know how to get results. We will work hard to get the money you deserve, and we will never charge a fee unless we get money for you.
