I’ve come across this defence, this doctrine quite a few times in my practice. It’s called the sudden medical emergency defence, and it states that if the person who caused the car accident.

Suffered an unforeseen medical emergency, heart attack stroke seizure, etc. They cannot be legally held liable for those actions, because they could not control their actions and therefore they were not negligent.

My experience #

It happened a few times in my cases. And there’s a couple of ways to try to go around that one. Because if it really is the truth that person suffered and the keyword here is an unforeseen medical emergency. Then really they cannot be held legally liable for that. So, if you’re done driving down the road, you’ve never had any health issue. Whatsoever you cannot foresee that you’re gonna have a heart attack or a stroke or seizure, when you’re driving to work then you should be fine.

However, a lot of folks out there do have medical problems. Unfortunately, they are aware of the seizures that they had in the past. They are aware of heart issues that they’ve had in the past. And stroke history that they had in the past and they still get behind the wheel. So, if you, if that at-fault person has a history of medical problems and still decide to go, and get behind the wheel, and drive, and then suffer another one. Or if that person was prescribed seizure medicine, they were not taking it for the last three days, and then they caused an accident.

Those are all exceptions to the sudden medical emergency doctrine or defence here in MO. And that’s one way to get around it. Hope you never have to suffer an accident.

Hope you never sell for a medical emergency in Missouri, but if you did have some of these issues, don’t hesitate to give me a call at 314-352-6800.

Bajric & Ramic Law Office
Nedim Ramic – Auto Accident Lawyer – Personal Injury Attorney