Posted on 03/24/2023 12:32:42 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
A Virginia woman is still fighting to hold her city accountable after a sanitation truck damaged her car five months ago. Chavonne Grant said the city’s trash truck hit her 2007 BMW 328i parked outside her home in Norfolk, Virginia and caused major damage, but nobody has been held responsible so far.
“There’s a gaping hole right here, the whole tire rod, the tire was flattened. The bumper was pushed up, but the bumper was on the ground. It’s completely cracked. … The hood had to be pushed down,” Grant told WAVY.
“There’s a gaping hole right here, the whole tire rod, the tire was flattened. The bumper was pushed up, but the bumper was on the ground. It’s completely cracked. … The hood had to be pushed down,” Grant told WAVY.
The post Virginia City Refuses To Be Held Liable After A Sanitation Truck Destroyed A Woman’s BMW appeared first on Blavity.
The Virginia woman said it was a neighbor who first saw the truck crashing into the BMW. The driver of the truck then apologized to Grant.
“He came out, he explained that he was covering a shift and he was moving too fast and over or underestimated my car,” Grant said.
The driver, according to Grant, also told her that the city’s insurance would cover damages. The Norfolk woman also said a third party adjuster was sent to survey the damaged car after she reached out to a city councilman.
Grant then received a letter stating that the city of Norfolk has sovereign immunity and would not be paying for repairs.
(Excerpt) Read more at blavity.com ...
Is the city self insured for their vehicles?
I’m pretty sure governments have sovereign immunity. Most pay legitimate claims, out of a sense of fairness, but you cannot compel them.
Then she’ll have to go after the driver.
Nope.
Federal and State governments may, local governments do not.
Get a job with the city of your choice and wreck anyone’s car you want.
Where did you get such a silly notion?
"[T]he doctrine of sovereign immunity is "alive and well" in Virginia." "Though this Court has, over the years, discussed the doctrine in a variety of contexts and refined it for application to constantly shifting facts and circumstances, we have never seen fit to abolish it. Nor does the General Assembly want the doctrine abolished." ... "One of the most often repeated explanations for the rule of state immunity from suits in tort is the necessity to protect the public purse. However, protection of the public purse is but one of several purposes for the rule." Messina v. Burden, 228 Va. 301 (1984)
"It is well established that the doctrine of sovereign immunity protects municipalities from tort liability arising from the exercise of governmental functions." Niese v. City of Alexandria, 264 Va. 230 (2002).
The distinctions between “Commonwealth” and “State” are largely legally irrelevant. Many States (Virginia especially) retain sovereign immunity and apply that doctrine in different ways to localities.
Virginia can call it's self a tooth fairy but it is still a state. And Norfolk is a city and in no way sovereign. No matter what these dimwits want to profess
“Sovereign immunity” gets Norfolk off the hook with a trash truck accident? Norfolk must have the happiest cops in the nation.
LOL! That’s not how it works, nice try though.
Doesn’t quite work like that either. LOL!
The City of Alexandria was immune for an alleged rape committed by a police office while on duty. (See Niese v. City of Alexandria, 264 Va. 230 (2002).
This PRECISE issue has been litigated before in Virginia. See Parada-Segova v. Barlow, 101 Va . Cir. 323 (2019) in which a garbage truck ran over a pedestrian in Fairfax County. Both the County AND the driver were held to be immune.
In fact, this issue has been litigated in Norfolk before. See Turner v. City of Norfolk and Timothy Banks, 80 Va. Cir. 369 (2010). There a city trash truck driver hit another vehicle. The driver didn't even bother with a claim against the City there, because the law is so clear in Virginia and conceded that the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred her claim against the city. The issue before the circuit court was whether the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred the driver from recovering damages against the city employee for his alleged simple negligence. The circuit court concluded that the doctrine of sovereign immunity barred the driver's action against the city employee.
This issue is complex. In Virginia, the Commonwealth has partially waived immunity for municipalities (as opposed to counties). In short, if a City and its employees are engaged in "governmental functions" as opposed to "proprietary functions" then they are immunity, if the opposite is true, there may be liability.
The operation of trash trucks has consistently been held to be a governmental function.
Sovereign immunity is based on the ancient principle that the king is the source of justice so “the king can do no wrong.” Sovereign immunity ought to have been abolished back when we got rid of kings.
Aren’t the garbage collectors contract workers?
That’s only one reason behind the policy.
“The doctrine of sovereign immunity serves a multitude of purposes including, but not limited to, protecting the public purse. The additional purposes include providing for the smooth operation of government; eliminating the public inconvenience and danger possibly stemming from the reticence of officials to act; and preventing citizens from improperly influencing the conduct of governmental affairs through the threat or use of vexatious litigation.” Messina v. Burden, 228 Va. 301 (1984).
In many municipalities (including Norfolk) they are municipal employees.
People really need to learn that things might be done differently than the small town that they grew up in and never moved away from.
Can the owner claim against her own insurance?
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