Clear-cut liability makes personal injury cases straightforward. Someone runs a red light and hits another car—fault is obvious. But plenty of accidents don’t work that way. Multiple factors contribute, witnesses tell different stories, or there’s just not enough evidence to definitively say who caused what. These murky situations don’t mean injured people are out of luck. They just mean attorneys have to work harder and smarter to build a case that proves fault when nothing about it is obvious.
Starting With What Little Evidence Exists
When liability is unclear, attorneys begin by collecting every scrap of available evidence, no matter how insignificant it might seem. Police reports provide a starting point, but they’re often incomplete or based on limited information the responding officer gathered at the scene. The report might say “driver stated they didn’t see the other vehicle” without determining why they didn’t see it or what factors contributed to the visibility issue.
Photos become critical. Not just photos of vehicle damage, but wide shots showing the entire accident scene, road conditions, signage, sight lines, lighting, and anything else that might explain what happened. Attorneys or investigators visit accident scenes personally, sometimes at the same time of day the accident occurred, to understand conditions the drivers faced.
Witness statements get scrutinized for details that might not have seemed important initially. Someone who said “the cars just collided” might remember more specific details when questioned carefully—which vehicle entered the intersection first, whether brake lights came on, whether either driver was looking at their phone.
Physical evidence from vehicles tells stories too. Damage patterns indicate angles of impact and speeds. Paint transfer shows which vehicle struck which. Deployed airbags and black box data from newer vehicles provide objective information about speed, braking, and steering inputs right before impact.
Using Accident Reconstruction Experts
When evidence doesn’t clearly point to fault, accident reconstruction experts become essential. These professionals—often former police officers or engineers—analyze physical evidence to determine how an accident happened. They use math, physics, and specialized software to recreate the sequence of events.
Skid marks reveal braking patterns and approximate speeds. Debris fields show impact points. Damage to vehicles indicates forces involved. Experts measure everything, photograph from multiple angles, and create diagrams and animations showing what their analysis indicates happened.
In cases where fault is disputed, having an expert who can testify about speeds, reaction times, sight distances, and whether drivers had time to avoid the collision can make or break the case. The expert provides scientific backing for the attorney’s theory of liability rather than just relying on conflicting witness accounts.
Reconstruction isn’t cheap—experts charge thousands for their analysis and additional fees to testify. But when liability is unclear and potential damages are substantial, the investment pays off by transforming a case that might get denied into one with credible evidence supporting the claim. Firms such as Tom Fowler Injury Law understand when bringing in reconstruction experts shifts cases from questionable to winnable, and they’re willing to invest in that expertise when circumstances warrant it.
Investigating Broader Factors Beyond Driver Actions
Sometimes liability isn’t clear because factors beyond individual driver actions contributed to the accident. Road design, maintenance issues, signage problems, or vehicle defects might be the real culprits. Attorneys investigating unclear liability look at these broader possibilities.
Dangerous road conditions—potholes, faded lane markings, broken traffic signals, obscured signs—can cause accidents where drivers couldn’t reasonably have avoided the collision. If the city or county failed to maintain roads properly or didn’t fix known hazards, they might share liability. This requires investigating maintenance records, previous complaints, and whether authorities knew about problems but failed to address them.
Vehicle defects sometimes cause accidents that look like driver error. Brake failures, sudden acceleration, steering malfunctions, or tire blowouts might be the reason the driver lost control. This requires mechanical inspection of the vehicle and sometimes expert analysis to determine whether defects existed and whether they caused the accident.
Building Liability Through Comparative Analysis
When liability is truly split—both drivers contributed to the accident—attorneys build cases by minimizing their client’s fault percentage while maximizing the other party’s responsibility. Every state handles shared fault differently, but most allow recovery as long as the injured party wasn’t primarily at fault.
This means combing through evidence to find every factor that shows the other driver bore more responsibility. Were they speeding? Even five over the limit matters. Were they distracted? Phone records can prove it. Did they fail to yield when they had a stop sign? Every detail that shifts the fault balance becomes important.
The attorney also has to counter claims about their client’s contribution. If the other side argues the client was speeding, the attorney finds evidence showing they weren’t—or shows that even if they were, it didn’t cause or contribute to the collision.
Medical evidence can support liability arguments too. Injury patterns sometimes indicate which version of events is accurate. If someone claims the collision was minor but injuries show high-force impact, that contradiction supports arguments about actual collision severity and fault.
Deposing Parties and Witnesses Strategically
When liability isn’t clear from physical evidence, depositions become the battleground where cases get won or lost. Attorneys depose the opposing party, witnesses, and sometimes experts to lock in testimony and find contradictions or admissions that support their liability theory.
Deposition questions need to be strategic. Rather than asking open-ended questions that let people tell their practiced story, attorneys ask specific questions about details—exactly where the deponent was looking, exactly when they first saw the other vehicle, exactly what they did in response. Specific questions reveal inconsistencies and gaps in recollection that undermine the credibility of the other party’s version.
Attorneys also use depositions to commit people to specific statements that can later be contradicted with other evidence. If someone says in deposition they were traveling 35 mph but vehicle damage analysis shows they were going 50, that documented lie destroys their credibility on other issues.
The client’s deposition is equally important. Attorneys prepare their clients extensively because the defense will try to get them to admit fault or say things that weaken the case. Solid deposition performance by an injured plaintiff who comes across as credible and consistent strengthens unclear liability cases significantly.
Creating Compelling Narratives From Ambiguous Facts
Even with thorough investigation, some cases remain genuinely unclear about fault. In these situations, attorneys succeed by creating compelling narratives that explain the evidence in ways that favor their client. This isn’t about making things up—it’s about framing facts and evidence in the most favorable light.
Two cars enter an intersection and collide. The physical evidence could support either driver having the green light. The attorney builds a case by showing their client had a pattern of cautious driving, no history of traffic violations, and no reason to run a red light, while the other driver was rushing to an appointment and had two previous red light violations. The attorney doesn’t have proof of who had the light, but creates a narrative that makes it more likely the other driver was at fault.
Jury persuasion often comes down to which version of events feels more plausible when neither can be definitively proven. Attorneys shape these narratives through expert testimony, careful presentation of facts, and undermining the credibility of the opposing story.
When Unclear Liability Still Results in Recovery
Cases with unclear liability settle all the time, often for substantial amounts. Insurance companies know that juries are unpredictable and even weak liability cases sometimes result in plaintiff verdicts. Rather than risk trial, they settle for partial value.
Attorneys leverage this reality by building the strongest possible case even from unclear facts, making the insurance company’s risk high enough that settlement makes sense. A case that starts as a liability nightmare can become a reasonable settlement through thorough investigation, expert analysis, and strategic case development.
The key is not giving up just because fault isn’t immediately obvious. With the right investigative approach, expert support, and strategic thinking, attorneys can build winning cases even when liability seems impossible to prove at first glance.