When you take your vehicle to an auto shop or a mechanic, you expect them to make the vehicle run better, not worse. However, what if they perform the needed repairs and/or maintenance incorrectly, causing you to get into a serious accident? Can you sue a mechanic for putting you in that situation?

Answer: If your injuries are provably the result of poor vehicle maintenance or repair, you can sue the mechanic or auto shop that did the maintenance.

That may sound pretty straightforward, but like most lawsuits it can be more complex than it first appears. Just because someone visited an auto shop before their crash doesn't mean the mechanics are automatically responsible for it.

How Do I Find Out if the Mechanic Was at Fault?

In some cases, determining who's at fault for an accident is pretty simple. In an instance a few years ago, for instance, a young woman took her car to a shop, the mechanic performed a transmission flush, and then he failed to put the correct amount of fluid back into the transmission. This resulted in the car owner getting about 60 miles down the road, on a major highway, when her car's transmission suddenly failed. Thankfully, she was able to safely pull onto the road's shoulder and was not hit, but had she been injured, anyone can draw a very clear line from no transmission fluid to a recent transmission flush.

However, in the majority of crashes, it is not simply a matter of pointing a finger at someone and expecting a court or jury to go along with it. In all but the most obvious cases, determining who or what is directly responsible for a crash requires research and investigation.

For example, if a new tire is installed on a vehicle and then, a few days later, it later pops causing a serious crash, we cannot assume the mechanic installed the tire incorrectly and that caused the crash. There are other potential culprits, such as poor manufacturing or driver error. The most surefire way to find who or what is at fault for the crash is to conduct a private investigation. If that investigation uncovers evidence that a mechanic's screw-up caused your injuries, then you likely have an actionable lawsuit.

You might be thinking to yourself, "Aren't private investigations expensive?" Done correctly, they are. However, we understand people don't just have huge sums of money just laying around, so our firm only collects payment if the victim wins their case against the mechanic who caused their injuries.