480,000 Yuan Multi-Vehicle Fatality Appeal: Court Upholds 60-25-15 Liability Split Between Bus Operator, Truck Driver, and Wrong-Way Driver
A transport company that paid over 1.8 million yuan in compensation after one of its buses was involved in a three-vehicle collision that killed one passenger and left another with first-degree disabilities won an appellate ruling upholding the liability allocation of 60 percent to the bus operator, 25 percent to a truck driver, and 15 percent to a wrong-way driver.
In November 2010, a small bus carrying seven passengers approached an intersection where it collided with a heavy truck, and both vehicles then struck a sedan traveling in the wrong direction. One passenger died from injuries, and another suffered first-degree disabilities requiring lifetime care. Traffic police assigned primary responsibility to the bus driver for driving a mechanically defective and overloaded vehicle through an intersection without yielding, with secondary responsibility divided between the truck driver for operating a defective and overloaded vehicle and the sedan driver for traveling the wrong way.
The transport company, as the bus operator, ultimately paid approximately 1.83 million yuan in settlements and court-ordered damages to the deceased passenger’s family and multiple injured victims. The truck driver had separately paid 260,000 yuan to the deceased’s family. The wrong-way driver had contributed nothing. The transport company then sued the other two drivers and their insurers to recover proportional shares of the total loss exceeding 2.09 million yuan.
At trial, the court allocated 60 percent liability to the bus operator, 25 percent to the truck driver, and 15 percent to the wrong-way driver, reasoning that the truck driver bore greater fault than the sedan driver due to multiple traffic violations including mechanical defects and overloading, whereas the sedan driver committed only one violation. Both mandatory traffic insurance policies were required to pay their full 122,000 yuan limits. The truck driver owed an additional 203,007 yuan after credits for prior payments, and the wrong-way driver owed 277,804 yuan.
On appeal, the truck driver argued the wrong-way driver should bear greater liability because the wrong-way driving forced him to change lanes. The insurers argued for strict sub-limit allocation within the mandatory insurance policies and challenged the reasonableness of the settlement amounts. The appellate court rejected all appeals, finding the original liability allocation reasonable given the truck driver’s multiple violations, and ruled that while property damage should be sub-limited within mandatory insurance, medical and disability compensation should not be strictly sub-limited due to their interconnected nature.