A collection letter to the car's registered owner

Attorney Answer

You have asked how to handle his problem, and the more urgent thing is that the letter addressed to you is your problem — the car is in your name, and that is a different exposure from his which needs its own answer. Alongside that there is a fact in your account that may defeat the whole claim.

Start with the fact, because it is the strongest thing here. Alabama is one of a handful of states that still applies contributory negligence, and it changes everything about a claim here. If the person claiming is found to have been negligent themselves, and that negligence helped cause the injury, they recover nothing — not a reduced amount, nothing. There is no apportionment and no percentage.

Two things soften that, and both matter.

It is a defense the other side has to prove. Contributory negligence is an affirmative defense, so the burden is on the defendant to establish it rather than on the claimant to disprove it. And it is not established simply by showing carelessness: the defendant generally has to show the claimant knew of the danger, appreciated it, and failed to take reasonable care anyway. Alabama's courts have said that simple heedlessness is not enough, and that it is normally a question for a jury rather than something decided as a matter of law.

And it is no defense at all to wanton conduct. Where the other party's behavior goes beyond ordinary negligence to wantonness, contributory negligence does not bar the claim. That makes how the other driver's conduct is characterized one of the most consequential questions in an Alabama case.

Apply that to a claim being made against you. Whoever is pursuing this money stands in the shoes of the driver whose damage was paid. You say that driver pulled out in front of your partner, gave no signal, and then came back across the road. If that is established, it is their own negligence contributing to the collision — and in Alabama that does not reduce their claim, it defeats it. That is the single most important feature of the position you are in, and it is the reason not to treat this letter as a bill.

A collection letter is not a judgment. Nobody has decided that either of you owes this. It is a demand, and the fact that it has been sent tells you nothing about whether it would survive being tested. Be careful what you say in response: acknowledging the debt, agreeing a payment, or making one, can affect your position in ways that are difficult to undo.

Your own exposure is a separate question from his and you should get it answered separately. Whether the registered owner of a vehicle is answerable for the driving of someone they allowed to use it is a real question with a real answer, and it is not the same question as whether the driver is liable. You were not in the car. Ask a lawyer about your position as owner specifically — do not let it be folded into his.

On the license suspension, the statute is unusually helpful because it names the ways out. Ala. Code § 32-7-6(a) provides that where the director does not have on file, within the period the section sets, satisfactory evidence that the person has been released from liability, has been finally adjudicated not to be liable, or has executed a duly acknowledged written agreement or conditional release providing for payment of an agreed amount in installments, the director determines the security to be required. Those three routes are the substance of it: the suspension machinery is driven by whether one of them is on file, not by whether anyone has actually decided the case.

One caution about that third route. An installment agreement resolves the suspension by agreeing to pay — which is the opposite of arguing that nothing is owed. Where there is a real defense, taking that route to solve the license problem can concede the money problem. Which of the three to pursue is exactly the decision to take with a lawyer rather than under time pressure from a letter.

What you can do

1. Do not pay anything, agree anything or acknowledge the debt in writing or by phone until you have taken advice. That applies to both of you. 2. Keep every document: both letters, the suspension notice, the crash report, and the receipt for what you have already paid. 3. Get the crash report and check what it records about the other driver — whether the absence of a license and the failure to signal are in it. 4. Write down what the other driver did, and find any witness. That conduct is the defense and it is the part that fades. 5. Ask a lawyer about your position as the registered owner specifically, as a separate question from your partner's position as the driver. 6. Ask that lawyer which of the three routes in § 32-7-6 fits, and specifically whether an installment agreement would concede a claim that might otherwise fail. 7. Deal with the suspension deadline as the urgent item. A defense to the money can be run later; a license, once suspended, is harder to get back than to keep.

⏱ Time limits apply. Ala. Code § 6-2-38(l) gives two years: “all actions for any injury to the person or rights of another not arising from contract and not specifically enumerated in this section must be brought within two years.” Evidence goes sooner — footage is overwritten and memories fade — so the practical deadline is usually much earlier than the legal one.

An Alabama attorney can tell you quickly how the facts here line up, and most will look at a matter like this at no cost.