Rideshare Accident Lawyer in Connecticut

Connecticut's statute of limitations for rideshare accident personal injury claims is two years from when the injury is first sustained or discovered, with a three-year statute of repose from the date of the act or omission, under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-584. For acute injuries apparent on the crash date, the two-year clock starts at the crash. The three-year repose is an absolute outer limit — even if the discovery rule would otherwise extend the window, no claim may be filed more than three years after the act or omission. The digital evidence preservation window is far shorter. TNC platforms retain proprietary GPS-level trip data on internal schedules; Connecticut's mandatory UM/UIM insurer has its own data retention policies. A preservation demand to the TNC, the driver, the TNC's insurer, and the victim's own UM/UIM carrier must go out within days of the crash. If the crash occurred near a Connecticut municipal highway — a common scenario in the I-95 Stamford-Greenwich commuter zone — the 90-day written notice under § 13a-149 starts immediately and is a jurisdictional prerequisite, not a procedural requirement that can be excused.

Connecticut's TNC statute at § 13b-120 requires minimum $1,000,000 CSL automobile liability insurance during active prearranged rides. This is among the highest TNC minimums in the region. The statute requires TNCs to maintain coverage "from the moment the driver logs into the platform" — the precise period structure is defined by the TNC's internal ride-status system and its digital logs. For Stamford and Hartford rideshare crashes, the critical question is whether the driver was in an active prearranged ride at the moment of impact. Connecticut's mandatory UM/UIM coverage under § 38a-336 — 25/50 minimum on every auto policy — means the victim's own policy provides an additional layer when the at-fault driver's coverage is insufficient. Connecticut's combined TNC coverage structure and mandatory UM/UIM requirement typically provide meaningful coverage stacking for serious rideshare injuries, making Connecticut one of the better-structured states for rideshare victim recovery.

Connecticut's 51% fault bar under Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-572h(b) bars recovery when the victim's negligence is "greater than the combined negligence" of all defendants. At exactly 50% fault, the victim still recovers; at 51%, recovery is zero. TNC insurers in Connecticut's congested commuter corridor use standard fault arguments: passenger unsafe door-opening, pedestrian crossing outside crosswalk in Stamford's busy downtown, third-party driver following too closely on I-95. The mandatory UM/UIM coverage creates an interesting defensive dynamic: the victim's own UM/UIM insurer — a different company — has its own interest in keeping fault allocation on the TNC driver rather than the victim. This alignment of interests between the victim and their own UM/UIM insurer is one of the few structural advantages in Connecticut rideshare crash cases. A local Connecticut rideshare attorney coordinates the preservation of the TNC's GPS logs, surrounding dashcam footage from other vehicles, and I-95 corridor surveillance camera footage to establish the objective fault record.

Connecticut's government road liability framework creates specific considerations for rideshare crash cases where municipal road conditions contributed. Under § 13a-149, a written notice of the highway defect must be served on the selectman, town clerk, or city/borough clerk within 90 days of the injury — and Connecticut courts treat this as jurisdictional, meaning no amount of good cause or hardship excuses failure to provide timely notice. For rideshare crashes on Stamford's I-95 interchange, New Haven's downtown grid, or Hartford's deteriorated surface streets — all of which have documented deferred-maintenance issues — the 90-day clock starts running immediately after the crash, while the injured victim is still in the hospital. State highway defect claims go to the Office of Claims Commissioner under § 4-148, with a one-year filing deadline. Both the 90-day municipal notice and the one-year state deadline run inside the two-year personal injury statute, making early attorney engagement — within the first week — the only way to preserve the government-entity claim alongside the TNC recovery.