12 News reported that a crash in Phoenix left a young girl in critical condition. According to that report, police say the truck that struck the vehicle carrying the girl and her mother was traveling the wrong way on Washington Street. No determination of fault has been made, and no one has been charged with or convicted of anything in connection with what was reported.
When a vehicle traveling the wrong direction on a roadway strikes an oncoming car, the injured occupants of the struck vehicle generally have a claim against the wrong-way driver's insurance, and sometimes against other sources of coverage. Arizona does not require proof that a driver was cited or convicted; a civil claim turns on whether the driver failed to use reasonable care and whether that failure caused the injuries. Under A.R.S. § 12-2505 Arizona applies pure comparative fault, so an insurer arguing that an injured person shares some responsibility can reduce recovery but not bar it. Most injury claims must be filed within two years under A.R.S. § 12-542, and the deadline on a child's own claim does not start running while the child is a minor. When the at-fault driver carries low limits or no insurance, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on the injured family's own policy often becomes the primary source of compensation.
A Child's Claim and a Parent's Claim Are Not the Same Claim
When a child is hurt in a collision, two separate sets of damages usually exist. The child has a claim for pain, disfigurement, disability, and future medical care and lost earning capacity. The parents have their own claim for the medical bills they are legally obligated to pay while the child is a minor. Those claims carry different deadlines. The parents' claim for medical expenses is governed by the two-year period in A.R.S. § 12-542, while the child's own claim is tolled during minority and does not expire on the same schedule.
That difference matters in practice because insurers sometimes offer one lump sum to resolve everything at once. In Arizona, a settlement of a minor's claim above a modest threshold generally requires court approval, and a judge will look at whether the amount is reasonable given the child's long-term prognosis. Do not sign a release covering a child's injuries before the treating physicians can describe what recovery is likely to look like a year or more out.
Finding Every Layer of Insurance
Serious injuries routinely exceed a single liability policy. Work through each possible layer:
- The at-fault driver's liability policy. Request the declarations page, not just a verbal limit.
- Commercial or employer coverage. If a vehicle involved was owned by a business or being used for work, a separate and often larger policy may apply.
- Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. This sits on your own auto policy and can stack across household vehicles depending on how the policies are written. A child injured as a passenger is typically covered by a resident parent's UM and UIM coverage.
- Medical payments coverage. MedPay pays early bills without regard to fault and can keep a hospital from sending accounts to collections while liability is sorted out.
Notify your own insurer promptly. UM and UIM policies contain cooperation and notice conditions, and some require written consent before you settle with the at-fault driver's carrier. Settling the liability claim first, without that consent, can jeopardize the larger claim.
What to Do While Someone Is Still in the Hospital
Families in the intensive care unit are not in a position to run an investigation, so keep it to what preserves evidence and nothing more.
- Request the police report number and order the full report when it is released, including any diagrams and supplemental reports.
- Ask the hospital for an itemized bill rather than a summary statement, and keep every record of what was billed and what insurance paid.
- Write down the names of anyone who stopped at the scene and keep them in your own notes; do not post them publicly.
- Do not give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer. You are not required to, and early statements made while a family is in crisis are later used to argue comparative fault under A.R.S. § 12-2505.
- Ask that the involved vehicles be preserved. Vehicles are often sold for salvage within weeks, and the crash data stored in them can be the clearest record of speed and direction of travel.
- Keep a short daily log of the injured person's condition, treatments, and missed work or school. Contemporaneous notes carry more weight than recollection months later.
If your family is dealing with the aftermath of a collision in the city, our Phoenix car accident attorneys can explain how liability and insurance coverage would be sorted out in your situation.