Legal Question in Personal Injury in California

Re: Auto Accident Liability

First, who determined that the accident was your son's fault. If it is the insurance company, that does not automatically flow to a subsequent lawsuit. They would still have to prove fault. With respect to you, as the registered owner of the vehicle, your potential personal liability is $15,000 unless they can argue negligent entrustment (which means that you knew your son is a reckless or negligent driver - i.e. excess speeding tickets or accidents. If so, they can possibly exceed the statutory limit. With respect to you son, technically, if they go to a lawsuit and they get a judgment in excess of the policy limits, the judgement is good for 10 years and can be renewed for an additional 10 years. Thus, they could garnish his wages, theoretically, for a long time. In most cases, people do not go after a you person and will bite their cheek and accept the policy limits. The strategy is to get the insurance company to make every possible effort to settle the cases for the policy limits and obtain releases for you and your son. I do not know if this adequately answers your question, but if you have more specific questions, please let me know.