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Originally Posted by 2TrunkSteve
You would be partially correct in my experience and I didn't intend to speak for all possibilities. In California (Utah, Colorado and Illinois are also similiar - that's where my experience has been) the criminal court proceedings will generally consider civil damages from an individual victim, however, they often view civil and criminal complaints as seperate. I have seen few instances where a restitution order has been issued by the criminal court for the benefit an individual victim. That said, in practice the prosecutor will not have the information to present to the court to seek civil damages in the sentencing phase of a criminal case, even if they are holding a correctly completed Victim's Statement. Most individuals are not savy enough to the legal system to know how to handle this process to begin with. Even if they are, the reality is the judges will often choose to leave the financial loss as a seperate civil matter pursuit and not incorporate it into the criminal case. The success rate is very low in my experience.
The main take-away of my prior post was that regardless of the success in any court proceeding, there is still the issue of getting blood from the turnip.
Maybe we should get back to driving.......this is starting to feel like work.
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Setting aside the legal process, in most states where liability is generally determined by who was at "fault "?, the first questioned an insurance company will ask, which operator was "cited" ? From there the burden of liability is always placed on the violator.
Enough said, you're right lets get back to driving!