Legal Question in Personal Injury in Washington

Unlikely that you can be dismissed from the case simply because he's a former employee. However, you should provide the summons you received to your insurance carrier so that it can assign an attorney to defend the case for you.

Ryan

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that while he worked for you, your now ex-employee had an accident driving his own van with your company's decals on his van, and your insurance covered this van for the time it was used to do work for your company.

Now, sometime after this person no longer works for your company, the person with whom he had the accident has filed suit against this man and also named your company as a co-defendant.

When you say "separated from him" I think you mean can you have a separate trial on the same matter. I'm guessing you don't want to have to be on the same side as your ex-employee, which is common.

If my understanding and assumptions are correct, then I would say that you are very unlikely to get a separate trial. Courts want to do this as efficiently as possible which means trying cases based on the same incident and set of facts at the same time, regardless of the number of defendants or plaintiffs. (Hence the need for class action lawsuits.)

I agree with Mr. Nute, that you need to immediately get in touch with your insurance company to give them a copy of the suit, otherwise, you may be in breach of your insurance policy. Usually, insurance policies require you to notify the carrier within a certain time period so that they can adequately defend the suit. If you fail in this regard, they may not be obligated to defend and payout any potential settlement.

Best of luck!