Old Republic International Corp., the Chicago-based insurer, provides commercial liability coverage of as much as $5 million for each of Uber Technologies Inc.’s self-driving vehicles.
The policy covers bodily injury, death and property damage, an Uber spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
The death of a pedestrian hit by a self-driving Uber vehicle in Arizona this week could offer a test of who can be held legally responsible for accidents when a human is no longer at the wheel, legal experts said.
Any litigation that arises from the accident, the first fatality involving a fully autonomous vehicle, could pit the ride-hailing service against technology suppliers and the vehicle’s manufacturer, legal experts said. It could also provide a window into confidential indemnification agreements that companies developing self-driving car systems may have reached to shield themselves legally.
Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor at the University of South Carolina with expertise in self-driving cars, said most states, including Arizona, require drivers to exercise due care to avoid hitting pedestrians on a roadway, even if the pedestrians use an unmarked crosswalk.
Sergei Lemberg, a California-based lawyer who has brought several lawsuits against self-driving car manufacturers, said that Uber, Volvo, which manufactured the sport utility vehicle, and any companies that supplied self-driving technology could potentially be held liable if litigation ensued from the Tempe accident. The “safety” driver who was behind the wheel but who appears not to have operated the vehicle could also be named as a defendant, Lemberg said.
“Suing all these parties would be my top thought right now,” he said.
Until now, most litigation over non-fatal accidents involving self-driving vehicles has been confidentially settled, according to legal experts. A case in which a motorcyclist sued General Motors after a collision last year with one of the company’s autonomous test cars in San Francisco is pending.
GM has said in a statement regarding the lawsuit that in its collision report the San Francisco Police Department determined that the autonomous vehicle was not at fault in the accident.
Legal experts said liability in the Tempe case would depend on the facts of the accident and the results of U.S. National Highway Safety Administration and National Transportation Safety Board investigations.
WITH NO DRIVER, SPOTLIGHT ON DESIGN
Car accident litigation usually turns on whether a driver acted negligently, or failed to exercise a reasonable level of care.
By contrast, a lawsuit involving an autonomous vehicle could revolve around whether the self-driving system had a design defect, legal experts said.
Design defect claims do not require a finding of fault or negligence. To prevail, a plaintiff must show only that a product had an inherent design defect that would render it unsafe.
Automakers and software writers could counter with detailed data gathered by on-board sensors on how cars behaved during a collision, experts said, to show that it was impossible for the vehicle to avoid a collision and that all the systems functioned properly.
One question that would likely arise in litigation is whether Uber, Volvo or any companies that supplied self-driving technology entered into indemnification agreements, in which an entity assumes another company’s liability costs.
Paul Rafferty, a California-based lawyer who represents carmakers, said such agreements in the autonomous vehicle world are confidential and disputes over indemnification are generally arbitrated or mediated behind closed doors.
Meanwhile, the daughter of the woman killed by an Uber self-driving vehicle in Arizona has retained a personal injury lawyer, underlying the potential high stakes of the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle.
The law firm of Bellah Perez in Glendale, Arizona, said in a statement it was representing the daughter of Elaine Herzberg, who died on Sunday night after being hit by the Uber self-driving SUV in the Phoenix suburb of Tempe