Florida Golf Cart Rollover Accident Attorney
Of all the different ways golf carts can go wrong, rollover accidents potentially cause the most catastrophic or fatal injuries. Victims of golf cart rollover accidents can suffer crushing injuries or ejections, leading to serious injuries such as fractures; head, neck and back injuries; brain and spinal injuries; internal organ damage; severe facial lacerations, and much more. Victims of golf cart rollover accidents might need significant compensation to make up for their medical expenses and the pain and emotional trauma they’ve suffered and may continue to endure. GolfCartAttorney is here to help. We concentrate our Florida personal injury law practice heavily in the area of golf cart accidents of all sorts, including rollovers. If you’ve been hurt in a golf cart rollover as a driver or passenger because of another party’s negligence or a golf cart defect, GolfCartAttorney at The Law Offices of Frank D. Butler is the law firm you want to help ensure your claim is successful. Call our experienced Florida golf cart rollover accident attorney today.
How Golf Cart Rollover Accidents Happen
Golf carts might look innocent enough, but they are not as stable as they seem and can quite easily tip over or roll over if not handled properly. Operator error is only one reason a rollover can occur, however. Just as often, another party’s negligence is to blame. Some of the leading causes of golf cart rollover accidents include:
- Golf cart is ridden over an uneven surface
- Driver attempts to scale a steep hill
- Golf cart strikes a fixed object
- Golf cart gets hit or bumped by another golf cart on a golf course
- Golf cart gets struck at high speed on a public roadway or in a community such as The Villages
- Driver overcompensates to avoid an object in the road, rough terrain, pedestrian, etc.
- Distracted driving
- Drunk driving
- Passengers hanging off the side of a golf cart
- Defective golf cart, including design defects, manufacturing defects, and failure to warn/marketing defects
A rollover accident can include a golf cart tipping over onto its side as well as actually rolling over on its side or end-over-end. In any event, the results can be horrifying, causing painful, serious physical injuries, psychological trauma, or even death.
Liability for Golf Cart Rollover Accidents in Florida
After reviewing the common causes of golf cart rollover accidents discussed above, it becomes clear that several different parties could be held responsible for causing a golf cart rollover crash. These parties include the golf cart operator, the driver of another golf cart or motor vehicle, a golf cart manufacturer or rental company, or even a passenger who was behaving recklessly. With years of experience handling Florida golf cart accident claims, Golf Cart Attorney Frank D. Butler is exceptionally skilled at investigating and analyzing a rollover accident, determining who is at fault, and building a strong case that proves the defendant’s liability to the injury victim.
Proving liability requires more than just showing that an accident occurred and that “somebody” must be responsible. Instead, golf cart accident claims fall under personal injury law, or the law of negligence. To hold another party liable for a golf cart rollover, the injury victim has to prove several aspects of a negligence claim, including:
Duty
The party responsible for the crash owed a duty of care to the injury victim, such as the duty to drive safely, the duty to sell or rent a golf cart in good working condition, the duty to load baggage onto the cart in a safe and conscientious manner, etc.
Breach
The at-fault party failed in their duty. They either did something they shouldn’t have done, or failed to do something they should have done, which violated the duty they owed to the accident victim. This breach of duty is also commonly called negligence, although parties can breach their duty through intentional misconduct as well.
Causation/Fault
The responsible party’s negligence or breach must be what caused the rollover accident to happen. Just because someone was acting negligently, it doesn’t necessarily mean their negligence caused the crash. The law requires the victim to prove that the negligence was the “actual” cause as well as the “legal” cause of the rollover, meaning some other factor did not intervene or supersede to be the “true” cause of the accident. Sometimes multiple parties can be negligent and contribute to a rollover, and each party can be held responsible for their share of the blame. The issue of causation is often one of the most complex and challenging pieces of a golf cart rollover accident to prove, although at times it can be quite clear what caused the accident.
Injury/Damages
The accident victim must have suffered some physical injury or property damage that can be compensated by paying money damages to the victim. Along with the direct costs of a physical injury such as medical bills, the victim can recover other damages such as loss of income or compensation from pain and suffering. The victim must be able to document and prove these damage in order to obtain a reasonable amount through an out-of-court settlement or jury verdict and court judgment.
Contact GolfCartAttorney Today
GolfCartAttorney at The Law Offices of Frank D. Butler, P.A., is skilled and experienced in handling golf cart rollover accidents and other crashes and injuries involving golf carts throughout the state of Florida. We offer the expertise you need to deal with the unique aspects of a golf cart accident compared to crashes involving other types of motor vehicles. We offer a free consultation to learn about the facts of your case, and we don’t charge any fee until after we are successful in recovering compensation for you. Contact our experienced Florida golf cart rollover accident lawyer today.
