Guest Passenger Suits – When Your Driver Is At Fault

As lawyers, we often interview multiple individuals who were driving in the same car at the time of an accident.  During these types of interviews, often the guest passengers of the vehicle have very different rights and greater rights than the driver of the vehicle.  In Louisiana, guest passengers are allowed to file “guest passenger” suits against the driver of their vehicle.

If you are discussing your rights with a lawyer, it is important for you to explore the option of filing a suit against the driver of your vehicle.  Very often if you consult with the same lawyer or attorney that the driver of your vehicle has already hired or consulted with, this attorney may not necessarily consider filing a suit on your behalf as a guest passenger.  This is because the attorney already represents the driver of the vehicle and ethically he could not file a suit against his current client.  Instead, you obviously should consult with an independent, separate lawyer so that your option of filing a suit against the driver of your vehicle can also be explored.

You can even file a guest passenger suit against someone related to you if he or she was driving your vehicle at the time of the accident.  In this way, often spouses file guest passenger suits against each other in order to recover for their full damages caused by the driver of the vehicle.  If you consult with a lawyer and he or she suggests that you may consider filing a suit against your spouse under the guest passenger laws of Louisiana, this could actually be good advice offered to help you maximize your recovery.  If you do not name the driver of your vehicle, you will not be able to collect any damages for their negligence or fault in causing or contributing to the accident.

As lawyers, we often counsel spouses to consider filing a guest passenger suit in order to make sure that they recover all of their damages, even those caused by their own spouse if he or she was driving the vehicle.  This can be hard advice to accept at first, but often it means our lawyers are looking out for your full rights.