Legal Question in Personal Injury in New York

You would be entirely negligent for the accident itself, however, your co-worker would have contributory negligence for his injuries since he failed to use the seatbelt (assuming the seatbelt was available and in good working condition). The tools next to him is not a factor to be heavily relied upon. Injuries may begin to surface hours or days after an accident as the adrenaline wears off so it's not a surprise that he began to experience more pain. Just be sure to mention to your insurance carrier the co-workers failure to wear his seatbelt.

Michael Krigsfeld, Esq.

Have you turned the case over to your insurance carrier? If you did, don't bother worrying about what percentage of fault lies with your co-worker... just hope you have enough insurance coverage so your personal assets are not exposed. To answer your question, failure to wear an available and working seat belt can be negligence on the part of the person injured HOWEVER, in order to persue this defense, the defense attorney must hire an expert witness to testify that the injury would not have occurred or would have been lessended had the seat belt been worn. Sometimes defense attorneys do this but often they don't because of the costs involved. I don't think the placement of tools is a factor because I don't think it was foreseeable that you would have an accident and the tools would contribute to the accident. Finally, injuries that were not present in the emergency room often surface later in a motor vehicle accident case.