Who Is at Fault in a Parking Lot Accident in Massachusetts?

Somebody is at fault. The idea that a Massachusetts parking lot is a no fault zone where insurers automatically split the claim down the middle is folklore, and the regulation that actually decides the question says the opposite in plain words. The Standards of Fault at 211 CMR 74.04 are applied by insurers and by the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds whenever they decide whether an operator was more than 50 per cent at fault, and 211 CMR 74.03 defines an Accident as “an unexpected, unintended event arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle that results in a claim to an Insurer under a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle insurance policy.” There is no public way requirement anywhere in that definition. One of the standards names parking lots outright. So the real question is not whether fault gets decided in a lot. It is which of two separate fault decisions you are asking about, because Massachusetts runs two of them and they answer different questions. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

Where the No Fault Zone Idea Comes From

Massachusetts is a no fault state, and that phrase does real work, just not the work most people think.

No fault in Massachusetts refers to personal injury protection. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A, personal injury protection provisions pay medical expenses, a portion of lost wages and replacement services to the people the section lists, “without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind, to the amount or limit of at least eight thousand dollars on account of injury to or death of any one person.” Your own insurer pays those first bills whether you caused the collision or not. That is the entire meaning of no fault here. It describes who pays the first layer of medical bills. It does not describe who was careless, and it has never stopped anyone from being found at fault.

Stack that phrase next to a parking lot, where collisions are slow, both cars are usually moving, there are often no lane markings to violate and no police officer attends, and it is easy to arrive at the conclusion that fault is simply not assigned. Insurers do sometimes resolve a two vehicle lot collision as a shared loss. That happens for a specific reason explained below, and it is a consequence of the rules rather than an exception to them.

Track One: The Surcharge Decision Under 211 CMR 74

The first fault decision is your insurer’s, and it is a yes or no question: was this operator more than 50 per cent at fault. If the answer is yes, the accident is a surchargeable at fault accident and it can raise your premium and sit on your record.

That decision is not made by feel. 211 CMR 74.02 provides that “The Standards of Fault contained in 211 CMR 74.04 shall be applied by Insurers and the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds when determining whether to presume an Operator of a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle is more than 50% at fault for an Accident.” The introduction to 74.04 sets the weight those standards carry: they “shall be considered determinative that an Operator of a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle was more than 50% at fault for an Accident, unless a showing to the contrary is demonstrated by the evidence presented in the course of review of the At Fault Accident.”

Determinative unless rebutted. That is a presumption, and presumptions can be moved by evidence, which is the single most useful thing to know if one of them has landed on you.

The standards a parking lot collision usually turns on

Four of the listed standards do most of the work in a lot, and one of them was written with lots specifically in mind.

• Standard 17. “The Operator, when operating a vehicle which is leaving or exiting from a parked position, parking lot, alley or driveway, thereafter collides with another vehicle.” This is the standard that settles the argument about whether the regulation reaches parking lots. It uses the words parking lot.
• Standard 14. “The Operator is in the process of backing up and thereafter collides with another vehicle.” Most lot collisions involve at least one vehicle in reverse.
• Standard 01. “The Operator collides with a person or a lawfully or unlawfully parked vehicle.” The phrase lawfully or unlawfully matters. A car parked across two spaces, or in a fire lane, is still a parked vehicle for this standard, and the moving driver still carries the presumption.
• Standard 18. “A door of the Operator’s vehicle is open, or is in the process of being opened, resulting in a collision with another vehicle.” Door strikes are a lot specialty and they have their own standard.

Two more come up in the aisles rather than the spaces. Standard 03 puts the presumption on the operator who “collides with the rear section of another vehicle,” which reaches the driver who rolls into the car ahead at a lot exit. Standard 15 covers the operator making a left turn or U turn across the path of another vehicle. And Standard 19, “The Operator operates the only vehicle involved in a collision,” is the one that catches the driver who clips a pillar, a cart corral or a light post.

Answer Capsule

Fault in a Massachusetts parking lot accident is decided the same way as anywhere else, on two separate tracks. On the insurance track, 211 CMR 74.02 directs insurers and the Board of Appeal to apply the Standards of Fault in 211 CMR 74.04, and 211 CMR 74.03 defines an Accident without any requirement that it occur on a public way, so lot collisions are covered. Standard 17 presumes more than 50 per cent fault against an operator leaving or exiting from a parked position, parking lot, alley or driveway who then collides with another vehicle; Standard 14 does the same for an operator backing up; Standard 01 for an operator who collides with a lawfully or unlawfully parked vehicle; Standard 18 for an opening door; Standard 19 for a single vehicle collision. Each is determinative unless a showing to the contrary is demonstrated by the evidence. A surcharge can be appealed to the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Policies and Bonds within thirty days under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113P, with a filing fee set by the board. On the legal track, M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85 lets an injured person recover as long as that person’s negligence “was not greater than the total amount of negligence attributable to the person or persons against whom recovery is sought,” with damages reduced in proportion, and it presumes the plaintiff was in the exercise of due care and puts the burden of proving otherwise on the party claiming it. Personal injury protection under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A pays up to at least eight thousand dollars without regard to fault and is not conditioned on a public way. Where the crash was in a place the public enters as invitees, such as a store lot, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a) makes it an offence to go away after knowingly colliding with another vehicle or property without stopping and making known your name, residence and register number. This is general information, not legal advice. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.

Why Two Backing Cars Really Can Come Out Even

Here is the situation that produced the myth, and it is worth being precise about it.

Two drivers reverse out of opposite spaces at the same time and meet in the aisle. Read Standard 14 again: it is written about “the Operator,” singular, and it applies where that operator is in the process of backing up and thereafter collides with another vehicle. Both drivers satisfy it. The regulation does not contain a tie breaker for that case, because the standards are applied one operator at a time rather than as a comparison between them.

So the presumption lands on both, and unless the evidence separates them, for instance video showing one car was already stopped or had substantially completed its manoeuvre while the other was still moving, the insurers can end up looking at two presumptively at fault operators. That reads from the outside like a rule that nobody is at fault in a parking lot. It is the opposite. It is two findings of presumed fault arriving at once.

The practical consequence is that evidence separating the sequence is worth more in a parking lot than almost anywhere else. Which car moved first, which was stopped, which had the longer distance to cover, and whether either driver had already straightened out are the facts that break the symmetry. Most of them are visible on a store camera for a limited period, and that period is usually short.

Track Two: Legal Fault, Which Is a Percentage

The second decision has nothing to do with your premium. It is the one that decides money in an injury or property damage claim, and it is governed by M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85.

The section provides that contributory negligence “shall not bar recovery in any action by any person or legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or in injury to person or property, if such negligence was not greater than the total amount of negligence attributable to the person or persons against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person for whose injury, damage or death recovery is made.”

Three consequences of that sentence matter in a lot case.

First, this is a percentage, not a yes or no. Fault of 30 per cent does not end a claim; it reduces it by 30 per cent. That is a different question from the over or under 50 per cent line the surcharge track draws, and the two answers do not have to match. Our fuller explainer on how fault is determined in a Massachusetts car accident walks through both tracks side by side, and comparative negligence and partial fault goes deeper on how the percentage itself is argued.

Second, the section ends with two clauses that are easy to miss and are worth reading twice: “The burden of alleging and proving negligence which serves to diminish a plaintiff’s damages or bar recovery under this section shall be upon the person who seeks to establish such negligence, and the plaintiff shall be presumed to have been in the exercise of due care.” An adjuster asserting that you were partly to blame is asserting something the statute puts the burden of proving on the party asserting it.

Third, the section abolishes the defence of assumption of risk in all actions under it, and it provides that a plaintiff’s violation of a criminal statute, ordinance or regulation which contributed to the injury “shall be considered as evidence of negligence of that plaintiff, but the violation of said statute, ordinance or regulation shall not as a matter of law and for that reason alone, serve to bar a plaintiff from recovery.” Parking where you should not have been is evidence. It is not a bar.

Reporting, and the Thousand Dollar Line

M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires “every person operating a motor vehicle which is involved in an accident in which any person is killed or injured or in which there is damage in excess of one thousand dollars to any one vehicle or other property” to report in writing to the registrar within five days on the approved form, and to send a copy to the police department having jurisdiction on the way where the accident occurred. The section also allows the registrar to suspend or revoke the licence of a person who violates it.

Two things about that section catch people out in parking lot cases. The trigger is written around the accident, the injury and the amount of damage, not around the character of the surface. And one thousand dollars of damage to any one vehicle is a low bar once a modern bumper cover, a parking sensor or a camera is involved, which means a collision that felt trivial in the aisle can sit above the reporting line. The mechanics of the form and the deadline are covered in how to report a car accident in Massachusetts.

Police often decline to attend a private lot and will sometimes take a report at the station instead. That is a resourcing decision by the department. It does not change the operator’s own duty under sec. 26, and it does not mean nothing was recorded.

Leaving a Note Is Not What the Statute Describes

This is the point in a parking lot case with the sharpest edge, and it is worth stating exactly.

M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a) reaches conduct “upon any way or in any place to which the public has a right of access, or any place to which members of the public have access as invitees or licensees.” Customers in a supermarket, mall or restaurant lot are there as invitees. Within that geography, the section covers “whoever without stopping and making known his name, residence and the register number of his motor vehicle goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property.”

Stopping and making that information known is the conduct the statute describes. A note under a wiper is a decent instinct and it is not the same act, and the section says nothing about notes. The penalties, and the separate and considerably more serious provisions that apply where a person rather than property was struck, are set out in the Massachusetts hit and run penalty article. If you are the one whose car was hit and the other driver left, sec. 26 expressly provides that the police department “shall accept a report filed by an owner or operator whose vehicle has been damaged in an accident in which another person has unlawfully left the scene of such accident.”

Personal Injury Protection Does Not Stop at the Kerb

Because parking lot collisions are slow, people assume the injuries are not worth reporting and that no coverage applies. Neither follows.

The personal injury protection definition in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A pays for bodily injury “caused by accident and not suffered intentionally while in or upon, or while entering into or alighting from, or being struck as a pedestrian by, the insured’s or obligor’s motor vehicle.” That is a description of a relationship to the vehicle. It is not a description of a road. Nothing in the definition conditions the benefit on the collision happening on a public way.

Two limits inside that same section decide what the benefit is actually worth. Personal injury protection is at least eight thousand dollars for any one person, and where the injured person has health, sickness or disability coverage, the section provides that personal injury protection “shall not provide for payment of more than two thousand dollars” of the listed medical expenses to the extent they have been or will be compensated by that health plan. Wage benefits are limited to amounts actually lost, and where a wage continuation programme applies, to an amount that together with that programme provides 75 per cent of the average weekly wage. The full mechanics are in what PIP covers in Massachusetts.

Being hit as a pedestrian while walking to your car is squarely inside that definition, which is worth knowing because a large share of parking lot injuries happen to people on foot rather than to people in vehicles.

Whether Pain and Suffering Is on the Table

In a motor vehicle case, M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D governs. A plaintiff “may recover damages for pain and suffering, including mental suffering associated with such injury, sickness or disease, only if the reasonable and necessary expenses incurred in treating such injury” for the listed medical categories “are determined to be in excess of two thousand dollars,” unless the injury (1) causes death, (2) consists in whole or in part of loss of a body member, (3) consists in whole or in part of permanent and serious disfigurement, (4) results in the loss of sight or hearing the section describes by reference to M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 36, or (5) consists of a fracture.

That fifth exception does a lot of work in low speed cases. A wrist fracture from bracing against a dashboard, or a foot fracture from being knocked down by a reversing car, satisfies sec. 6D on its own terms without any argument about how much treatment cost. The serious injury threshold article sets out how the two thousand dollar route is built in the cases that do not clear an exception.

When the Problem Is the Lot Itself

Some lot injuries are not really vehicle cases. A pedestrian struck where a hedge blocked the sightline at an aisle exit, a fall on an unsanded ice sheet at the base of a ramp, or an assault in a garage with broken lighting are claims about the condition and management of the property rather than about a driver.

Those run on premises law rather than on the Standards of Fault. Massachusetts owes lawful visitors a duty of reasonable care in the circumstances, and the starting points are premises liability and slip and fall, and, where the harm was caused by a third party in a place with a known security problem, negligent security. It is common for a single parking lot incident to carry both a vehicle claim and a property claim, against different parties with different insurers and different deadlines.

What Actually Decides These Cases

Parking lot cases are decided on a small number of concrete things, and most of them decay quickly.

Video. Almost every commercial lot has cameras. Almost none of them keep footage for long, and many overwrite within days. A written request to the property manager, made early and asking that the footage be preserved, is the single highest value step in a lot case.

The sequence, not the impact. Because both vehicles are usually moving slowly, the fight is about who was moving first and who had already established a position in the aisle. Photographs taken before the cars are moved, showing final rest positions relative to the space lines, answer that better than any later description.

Damage geometry. Where on each vehicle the damage sits usually tells the story of who was straightened out and who was still turning. Photograph both vehicles, not just yours.

Witnesses who are about to leave. Lot witnesses are shoppers. They are gone in minutes and there is no way to find them afterwards. A name and a phone number is worth more than a long statement.

The other driver’s account before an insurer shapes it. What the other driver says in the first minutes is often the most candid version anyone will hear. Insurers ask for recorded statements early for the same reason, which is why it is worth understanding what an adjuster is doing when they call before giving one.

If a Surcharge Lands on You

An at fault determination is appealable, and the route is statutory. M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113P provides that any insured aggrieved by an insurer’s determination under the safe driver insurance plan “may, within thirty days thereafter, file a written complaint with the board of appeals on motor vehicle policies and bonds,” accompanied by a filing fee to be determined by the board. The board may deny the appeal without a hearing on the basis of the standards of fault, and where it does, it must notify the insured of the right to a hearing. It must give the insurer and the insured at least ten days notice of any hearing. If it finds the safe driver insurance plan was not applied in accordance with the standards, it orders the insurer to make the appropriate premium adjustment, and a further appeal lies to the Superior Court under M.G.L. c. 30A, sec. 14.

Thirty days is a short window and it runs from the determination, so the notice that arrives from the insurer is the document to read the day it lands. What repairs cost out of pocket, and how an at fault finding interacts with that, is covered in what happens when the at fault driver pays out of pocket.

Talking to a Lawyer

Most parking lot collisions are property damage matters that the insurers resolve between themselves. The ones worth a conversation are the ones with an injury, a pedestrian, a disputed sequence, footage that is about to be overwritten, or a surcharge that looks wrong on the face of the standard the insurer applied.

Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge. This article is general information about Massachusetts law and not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney client relationship.

Common Questions

Q: Are parking lots no fault zones in Massachusetts?

A: No. There is no Massachusetts statute or regulation that treats a parking lot differently from anywhere else for fault purposes. The Standards of Fault at 211 CMR 74.04 apply to an Accident, which 211 CMR 74.03 defines as an unexpected, unintended event arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a private passenger motor vehicle that results in a claim to an insurer. Nothing in that definition requires a public way. One of the standards, number 17, names parking lots directly.

Q: Who is presumed at fault when two drivers back out of spaces and hit each other?

A: Both operators are within the wording of Standard 14, which applies where an operator is in the process of backing up and thereafter collides with another vehicle. The standards are written one operator at a time, so the presumption can reach both drivers at once. That is one of the few situations where a shared or disputed outcome genuinely is the likely result, and it is probably where the fifty fifty folklore comes from. It is a consequence of two presumptions overlapping, not a rule about parking lots.

Q: If someone hits my parked car in a lot, who pays?

A: Standard 01 in 211 CMR 74.04 provides that an operator who collides with a person or a lawfully or unlawfully parked vehicle is presumed more than 50 per cent at fault. Note the words lawfully or unlawfully. Under that standard, being badly parked, or parked where you should not have been, does not by itself move the presumption off the moving driver. It may still be argued as evidence in a damages claim under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85, which is a separate question from the surcharge.

Q: Do I have to report a parking lot crash to the RMV?

A: M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires every person operating a motor vehicle involved in an accident in which any person is killed or injured, or in which there is damage in excess of one thousand dollars to any one vehicle or other property, to report in writing to the registrar within five days and to send a copy to the police department having jurisdiction on the way where the accident occurred. The duty in that section is written around the accident and the amount of damage rather than around whether the surface was a public way, and one thousand dollars of damage is a low bar on a modern vehicle.

Q: Is driving away after scraping a car in a parking lot a crime in Massachusetts?

A: M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a) reaches conduct upon any way or in any place to which the public has a right of access, or any place to which members of the public have access as invitees or licensees, and it covers whoever, without stopping and making known his name, residence and the register number of his motor vehicle, goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property. A store or mall lot open to customers is a place the public enters as invitees. Leaving a note is a courtesy and is not what the section describes, which is stopping and making that information known.

Q: Does PIP pay for injuries in a parking lot crash?

A: The personal injury protection definition at M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A conditions payment on bodily injury caused by accident and not suffered intentionally while in or upon, or while entering into or alighting from, or being struck as a pedestrian by, the insured’s motor vehicle, without regard to negligence or fault of any kind, to a limit of at least eight thousand dollars for any one person. It does not condition payment on the crash happening on a public way. PIP is also where the phrase no fault comes from in Massachusetts, and it means benefits are paid without deciding fault, not that nobody is at fault.

Q: Can I appeal a surcharge for a parking lot accident?

A: Yes. M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113P allows any insured aggrieved by an insurer’s determination under the safe driver insurance plan to file a written complaint with the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Policies and Bonds within thirty days, accompanied by a filing fee determined by the board. The board applies the same Standards of Fault. The introduction to 211 CMR 74.04 makes each standard determinative unless a showing to the contrary is demonstrated by the evidence presented, so a presumption is a starting point that evidence can move.

Q: Will a low speed parking lot crash support an injury claim?

A: It depends on the injury and the medical evidence, not on the speed. In a motor vehicle case M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D allows damages for pain and suffering only where reasonable and necessary medical expenses exceed two thousand dollars, unless the injury caused death, consists in whole or in part of loss of a body member or of permanent and serious disfigurement, results in the loss of sight or hearing the section describes, or consists of a fracture. A parking lot collision that produces a fracture clears that threshold on the last exception regardless of how slow it was.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney client relationship. Whether any of it applies to your situation depends on facts that are not in this article, including where the collision happened, what the damage was, what the insurers have already decided and what your medical records show. For advice about your own case, speak with a lawyer.