Announcer: The following segment is sponsored by Harding Mazzotti.
Interviewer: In recent weeks there have been a number of police investigations resulting in a chase, and interestingly, there’s no statewide policy on vehicle pursuits. So how does this work from a legal perspective and when a crash happens, who is responsible? We’ve got Cassandra Kazukenus here from Harding Mazzotti. Thank you so much for being here. So can you explain a little bit about this, what is a person’s rights when something like this happens?
Cassandra: So obviously you started with they all have a little bit of a different rule or philosophy. Different departments have different guidelines or rules about it. But in, like, the Saratoga guidelines or the New York State Police guidelines, public safety is a factor that goes into how to judge when to pursue or cut off a pursuit, stuff like that. Those guidelines don’t necessarily translate to whether you have the ability to bring a personal injury claim or a property damage claim against the driver or potentially the officers or the municipality itself.
Interviewer: And can a person be held liable in a situation like this?
Cassandra: Yeah. So the driver of the vehicle, if they crash into you, they’re responsible just like normal car crash. The questions always become, do they have insurance coverage, is there an ability to recover? The owner of the vehicle, if it’s a different person, can also be responsible because in New York they have something called the Vehicle and Traffic Law 388, which creates vicarious liability for the owner as well. That goes away if the vehicle’s stolen. For instance, we often have police chases when there’s a stolen vehicle involved. The driver still has responsibility and if they have their own insurance policy, that policy could apply. So there still is the potential to recover in those situations.
Interviewer: When there is a chase like this, is there any time where it’s the police officer’s liability or the department’s liability?
Cassandra: As I like to do a lot on here, maybe. It is really fact-specific because the police officers aren’t held to the typical negligence standard because obviously there’s the public safety component to their job. So when they are involved in something like this, they’re held to a different degree, which is reckless. So that’s much higher and more difficult to achieve. So it goes into how fast, what were the circumstances, why was the chase going on? All of those things go into it. So you don’t necessarily know today, but maybe after some investigation there is a possibility.
Interviewer: Is it weird to you that there isn’t, like, a statewide kind of policy on this? Do you think that would be something that would help?
Cassandra: I think any time you have to make judgment calls, it’s hard to put into writing what exactly those judgments go into. Different communities have different risks, different communities have different crimes, different communities have different problems that they’re looking to solve and so I think a lot of this sometimes comes down to community-based policing, which can make sense. I think these are tough decisions as to if you’re just chasing a speeder and you don’t have any other reason, probably less need to continue to do that. But if there is something more dangerous going on, then the needs may be different.
Interviewer: Okay. Cassandra, thank you so much.
Cassandra: Thank you.