In car accident cases, litigants often invoke the “Emergency Doctrine,” which recognizes that when a driver is faced with a sudden and unforeseeable occurrence not of his own making which causes that driver to be reasonably disturbed such that he must act quickly, it is inappropriate to second-guess that driver’s decisions made in the heat of the moment.

In Lake v. Holzer, the plaintiff, a pedestrian, was standing on a raised median island which separated the north and southbound lanes of Broadway in Manhattan.  The defendant driver was traveling in the northbound lane closest to the median when she drove up onto the median and struck the plaintiff.  The defendant testified that she had been moving slowly in traffic when she became scared that a car behind her and slightly to the right was going to sideswipe her.  To avoid the low impact contact, defendant drove onto the median and struck plaintiff.

The defendant argued that the she was entitled to the benefit of the “Emergency Doctrine” defense.  The court rejected the defense since feeling crowded in Manhattan traffic was not an unforeseen circumstance.  Low impact fender benders are commonplace on busy Manhattan streets, and avoiding those type of accident did not constitute an emergency.  The court clarified by adding that “an emergency is avoiding a head-on collision or a body flailing in the road.”  The Emergency Doctrine exists for real emergencies – it is not a free pass for drivers who panic to “jump the curb and mow into pedestrians.”  Accordingly, the court denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment and granted plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment.

When defending a car accident case, it is important to remember that the Emergency Doctrine can be an effective defense if, and only if, the defendant’s actions were the result of an actual emergency.  Although the above case serves as an example of an accident that was not a real emergency, oftentimes the facts of a case will be less clear and this defense may be viable.

Thanks to Jeremy Seeman for his contribution to this post.