Legal Question in Personal Injury in Virginia

Liability for damage to the vehicle is based on "negligence."

No one is responsible to pay for the damage to a vehicle unless there is some FAULT involved.

If a person acts NEGLIGENTLY and damage results, then they are responsible to pay for the damage. (Obviously if they act intentionally they are also liable for any damage.)

To make things more complicated, Virginia follows the "contributory negligence" rule. So if BOTH parties were negligent (in a way that is relevant to the lawsuit) then nobody gets anything, each side bears their own losses.

So the first question about the cow in the road is whether the owner of the cow was negligent in allowing the cow to escape. Probably, yes. In the usual way things go, a cow is not going to escape unless someone was negligient.

So it is almost certain that the cow would not be wandering around the road UNLESS soemone was negligent.

However, this is still something that has to be proven. The actual facts of what happened need to be considered. It would depend upon what took place. But it is very likely that something happened that was negligent that allowed the cow to get out.

But that is not the end of the story.

The next question is whether the driver of the car was negligient in not being able to stop in time to avoid hitting the cow. It would seem that a person driving down the road should be able to stop in time to avoid hitting a cow in the road.

So this would depend upon what happened. Was the cow charging or running? Did the car drive around a corner and suddenly run into the cow? That sort of thing.