Actual stories of lawsuits for doing tractor work for hire.

[topbuilder]

I see what you mean. Maybe we should open the question to more countries than the US.

 

[LD1]

Quicksandfarmer makes an excellent point.

I pay $600 for $4,000,000 coverage. So that tells me that the odds of something happening to me are less than 1:6,667.

I pay about $1200/yr for 3 vehicles. So about $400 per. And that's $500,000 coverage. So my odds there are 1:1250. Bout 5 times more likely to get in a car accident.

About everyone I know drives. And have been driving for a long time and almost every day. Knowing someone or being personally involved in an accident....rare.

I can count on 1 hand the number of people I know that bushhog, and even then it's only a side gig and not everyday. Result.....something happening is very very rare

 

[TheMan419]

So it probably does not count as a law suit as no suit was filed to my knowledge. Back in 2012 we had our septic replaced. Call before you dig people came out and painted up the lawn for the gas line, phone, cable, electric. Lawn looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Excavator hits the phone line anyway. AT&T comes out to repair it. OF course they can tell the ground had been dug up. They tell me I have to tell them who the excavator was or I am responsible for the cost of the repair. So I told them.

I assume they got the cost of the repair from the excavator. I realize that cost was pretty minimal and not turned into insurance. However, had it been the gas line instead......

Also the question of a lawsuit being filed is pretty irrelevant. I would suspect many of the cases would not be filed. Homeowner would be injured and make a demand to the tractor operator. The insurance company would get involved and if they felt it was economically beneficial to do so pay out the claim. Just as happens in most car accidents.

The idea of insurance is to cut your risk. IF we KNEW that operator A was going to be the one that had the accident his premiums would be sky high and the rest of us would not need to buy insurance.

On the other hand if you want to put your savings and home at risk without insurance go right ahead.

 

[LD1]

Clipped the phone line many times before. Never been charged. But never fiber.

I pretty much ignore the phone line markings unless they re fiber.

If I gotta dig, I gotta dig. And not much point even trying to dig by hand to find phone cause the shovel cuts the line just as easy as the hoe. So I save myself the manual labor.

Last one I clipped, I placed together temporarily so they would have phone/internet. The just left it exposed and the phone co got out there and did a proper repair a few days later

 

[namesray]

Here's the thing: as others have posted, a million dollars of liability insurance for tractor operation costs about $800 a year. Insurance companies are in it for the money, and they know risk, so the price of insurance tells you all you need to know about the likelihood of something happening. If they're taking in money by the hundreds and potentially paying out by the millions, they thing they're insuring against has to be incredibly rare. That doesn't mean it never happens, but it's not going to be common.

Secondly, most lawsuits are settled, and most settlements have confidentiality clauses. So most people who have been involved in lawsuits aren't at liberty to discuss them. Only a fool would risk losing his insurance coverage by discussing a settlement, even under an alias on an internet forum.

This make excellent sense to me and is very well put. I never thought of insurance this way before. Something so simple too. Seems like a good insurance policy trumps any llc/corp format, or atleast if running a side business, good insurance would be the primary thing over forming llc/corp if doing the bare minimum. Seems like a consensus that having an insurance brings some back up help in legal matters with your insurance companies lawyers. Kinda like getting a 2 for 1 deal.

Now just have to make sure your liability insurance actually covers you for what you need and doesn't have a "exempt/exception" clause. My general liability insurance description packet is yea thick with so many terms and clauses, it seems very complicated. High chance of a "loop hole" somewhere I bet!

As for my orginal question/post, I expected with all the folk here that seem to do business with their equipment, that there would atleast be a few direct personal experiences with an issue arising from a mishap and an unhappy customer. There was a couple near misses by tbn's, quite a few "read this one", and a few comic reliefs. All helpful in thir own way. Thanks guys. I now completely believe having a good liability insurance policy is a "no brainer" and should have.

Now I am wondering how much help forming a llc would be as opposed to a sole proprietor for a side business. No employees, just the owner doing business?

Should I start a new thread or leave it here?