Car Accident Victims Win
In a victory for car accident victims, a Florida federal judge as held that the "Graves Amendment" is unconstitutional. The 2005 federal law abolished vicarious liability of long-term automobile lessors based solely on ownership. Thus, states such as Florida that hold the owners of cars vicariously liable for the negligence of people they permit to drive their cars, saw their state statutes or common law superseded by federal legislation. Sadly, this significant measure which deprives car accident victims of recourse was slipped into a 900 page bill during a House-Senate conference, and had never been the subject of floor discussion or debate.
But U.S. District Court Judge Michael Moore, from the Southern District of Florida, ruled that the federal government had no authority to get involved in the states right to regulate tort liability of rental car companies. In Vanguard vs. Huchon, Judge Moore found that the law violates the Commerce Clause. The court accepted the view of lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Litigation who represented the car accident victim. In a statement the CCL explained that “Congress did not even try to regulate commerce. It told the states what their tort law had to be, whether it affected interstate commerce or not. The Constitution does not give Congress that power."
The legislation has been a source of concern for all car accident lawyers and car accident victims that they represent. Not only does it eliminate valid state law in Florida and elsewhere, but it protects those companies profiting from rental car business from liability caused by its renters. Certainly, Florida like a number of other states has the right to determine that owners of cars who loan them to others should be financially responsible for harm that is needlessly inflicted on innocent people. Certainly, when this decision and others are appealed we hope that state rights and the rights of car accident victims continue to prevail.
