Pedestrian Accident Complaint - Arkansas

COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES (PEDESTRIAN COLLISION) — ARKANSAS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Caption
2. Parties, Jurisdiction, and Venue
3. General Factual Allegations
4. Count I — Negligence (Against Defendant Driver)
5. Count II — Statutory Violation as Evidence of Negligence (Against Defendant Driver)
6. Count III — Negligent Entrustment / Vicarious Liability (Against Defendant Owner)
7. Damages
8. Prayer for Relief
9. Jury Demand
10. Reservation of Rights
11. Signature and Service Blocks
12. Initial Service and Proof
13. Arkansas Practice Notes
14. Sources and References

1. CAPTION

IN THE CIRCUIT COURT OF [COUNTY] COUNTY, ARKANSAS

[___________] DIVISION

CASE NO. [________________]

COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES (PEDESTRIAN COLLISION)

JURY TRIAL DEMANDED

Plaintiff, by and through undersigned counsel, for this Complaint against Defendants, states and alleges as follows:

2. PARTIES, JURISDICTION, AND VENUE

1. Plaintiff [PLAINTIFF NAME] ("Plaintiff") is an adult resident citizen of [COUNTY] County, Arkansas, and at all material times was lawfully present as a pedestrian upon or crossing the public roadways of this State.

2. Defendant [DRIVER NAME] ("Driver Defendant") is, upon information and belief, an adult resident citizen of [COUNTY / STATE] and may be served with process at [SERVICE ADDRESS] pursuant to Rule 4, Ark. R. Civ. P.

3. Defendant [OWNER / EMPLOYER NAME] ("Owner Defendant") is [an individual / a corporation / an LLC] that, at all material times, owned, controlled, and/or maintained the vehicle operated by Driver Defendant and/or employed Driver Defendant. Owner Defendant may be served at [SERVICE ADDRESS / REGISTERED AGENT].

4. Separate Defendants John Does 1–5 are persons or entities, whose identities are presently unknown to Plaintiff, who negligently caused or contributed to the collision and Plaintiff's injuries, including any additional owner, employer, lessor, or maintainer of the subject vehicle. Plaintiff will substitute their true names by amendment when ascertained. If Plaintiff invokes Ark. Code § 16-56-125 to toll limitations, the accompanying affidavit of unknown identity must be completed, sworn, and filed with this Complaint.

5. This action arises under Arkansas tort law for personal injuries sustained when a motor vehicle struck Plaintiff, a pedestrian, in [COUNTY] County, Arkansas, on [__/__/____].

6. Subject-matter jurisdiction is proper in this Circuit Court pursuant to Ark. Const. amend. 80, § 6 and Ark. Code § 16-13-201. Circuit courts are general-jurisdiction trial courts, and this is a personal-injury action.

7. Venue is proper in this county under Ark. Code § 16-60-101 et seq. because a substantial part of the event or omission giving rise to the claim occurred here and/or an individual Defendant resided here, or an entity Defendant had its Arkansas principal office here, when the event or omission occurred. Confirm any applicable specific venue provision before filing.

3. GENERAL FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

8. On [__/__/____] at approximately [TIME], Plaintiff was lawfully crossing [ROADWAY] [within a marked crosswalk / within an unmarked crosswalk at the intersection of [CROSS STREET] / at the intersection of [CROSS STREET] with the WALK signal illuminated], in [CITY], Arkansas (the "Collision").

9. At the same time and place, Driver Defendant was operating a [YEAR / MAKE / MODEL] [passenger vehicle / pickup truck / SUV / commercial vehicle] owned by Owner Defendant, traveling [northbound / southbound / etc.] on [ROADWAY].

10. Traffic, lighting, and weather conditions were [describe — e.g., clear, dry, daylight], and Plaintiff was plainly visible to a driver keeping a proper lookout.

11. The Collision occurred when Driver Defendant [SELECT / DESCRIBE THE MANNER OF COLLISION — e.g., failed to yield the right-of-way to Plaintiff in the crosswalk; turned left or right across the crosswalk into Plaintiff's path; accelerated through the intersection without looking; passed a vehicle that had stopped to allow Plaintiff to cross; was traveling at an unsafe speed and could not stop].

12. Driver Defendant "looked but failed to see" Plaintiff, failed to keep a proper and careful lookout for pedestrians, was distracted and/or inattentive, was traveling at a speed greater than was reasonable and prudent for the conditions, and/or failed to yield the right-of-way and take evasive action to avoid striking Plaintiff.

13. Plaintiff was crossing in a lawful, prudent, and careful manner at all material times, had the right-of-way, and did nothing — and failed to do nothing — that proximately caused or contributed to the Collision.

14. As a direct and proximate result of the Collision, Plaintiff — an unprotected human being with no vehicle, restraint system, or crumple zone to absorb the forces of impact — was struck by Driver Defendant's vehicle, thrown to the roadway, and sustained severe, painful, and permanent bodily injuries, including but not limited to [LIST INJURIES — e.g., orthopedic fractures, traumatic brain injury, spinal injury, internal organ injuries, degloving injuries, and disfiguring scarring].

15. Because a pedestrian lacks any of the protections afforded the occupants of a motor vehicle, the forces of the Collision caused Plaintiff to suffer catastrophic injuries materially more severe than those typically sustained by vehicle occupants in a comparable collision.

16. Plaintiff received emergency care at [HOSPITAL / EMS PROVIDER] and has since undergone [SURGERIES / HOSPITALIZATION / REHABILITATION / ONGOING TREATMENT], and will require future medical care.

17. All injuries and damages alleged were the foreseeable, natural, and probable consequence of Defendants' conduct.

4. COUNT I — NEGLIGENCE (Against Defendant Driver)

18. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates Paragraphs 1 through 17 as if fully set forth herein.

19. Driver Defendant owed Plaintiff a duty to exercise reasonable care in the operation of a motor vehicle, to obey the Arkansas Rules of the Road, to keep a proper lookout for pedestrians, to yield the right-of-way where required, to operate the vehicle at a safe and prudent speed, and to exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon the roadway.

20. Driver Defendant breached that duty by, among other things:

• Failing to keep a proper and careful lookout for Plaintiff, a plainly visible pedestrian;
• Failing to yield the right-of-way to Plaintiff while Plaintiff was lawfully crossing within a marked or unmarked crosswalk;
• Turning across, or proceeding into, the crosswalk occupied by Plaintiff when it was unsafe to do so;
• Overtaking and passing a vehicle that had stopped to permit Plaintiff to cross;
• Operating the vehicle at a speed greater than was reasonable and prudent for the conditions then existing;
• Driving while distracted, inattentive, or impaired;
• Failing to reduce speed, sound the horn, brake, or take other evasive action to avoid striking Plaintiff; and
• Failing to maintain proper control of the vehicle.

21. Each of the foregoing acts and omissions, separately and in combination, was a direct and proximate cause of the Collision and of Plaintiff's injuries and damages.

22. As a direct and proximate result, Plaintiff has sustained the damages described in Section 7 below.

5. COUNT II — STATUTORY VIOLATION AS EVIDENCE OF NEGLIGENCE (Against Defendant Driver)

23. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates Paragraphs 1 through 22 as if fully set forth herein.

24. The Arkansas Rules of the Road impose specific statutory duties on Driver Defendant for the protection of pedestrians such as Plaintiff, including, as applicable to the manner of the Collision:

• Ark. Code § 27-51-1202(a) — where traffic control signals are not in place or in operation, the driver of a vehicle "shall yield the right-of-way, slowing down or stopping if need be to yield, to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within any marked crosswalk or within any unmarked crosswalk at an intersection";
• Ark. Code § 27-51-1202(b) — whenever any vehicle is stopped at a marked or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection to permit a pedestrian to cross, the driver of any other vehicle approaching from the rear "shall not overtake and pass the stopped vehicle";
• Ark. Code § 27-51-1204(d) — "[n]otwithstanding the provisions of this section, every driver of a vehicle shall exercise due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian upon any roadway and shall give warning by sounding the horn when necessary and shall exercise proper precaution upon observing any child or any confused or incapacitated person upon a roadway"; and
• Ark. Code § 27-51-201 et seq. — duty to operate the vehicle at a speed that is reasonable and prudent under the conditions.

25. Plaintiff is within the class of persons the foregoing statutes were enacted to protect, and the Collision is the type of harm those statutes were designed to prevent.

26. Driver Defendant violated [CITE THE SPECIFIC SECTION(S) APPLICABLE], and was cited for [TRAFFIC CITATION, IF ANY]. Under Arkansas law, that violation is evidence of negligence to be considered with the other facts and circumstances; Plaintiff alleges it contributed to the Collision and resulting injuries. Central Oklahoma Pipeline, Inc. v. Hawk Field Services, LLC, 2012 Ark. 157.

6. COUNT III — NEGLIGENT ENTRUSTMENT / VICARIOUS LIABILITY (Against Defendant Owner)

27. Plaintiff realleges and incorporates Paragraphs 1 through 26 as if fully set forth herein.

28. Owner Defendant entrusted the subject vehicle to Driver Defendant when Owner Defendant knew, or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known, that Driver Defendant was an incompetent, inexperienced, reckless, impaired, or otherwise unfit driver.

29. Alternatively, at the time of the Collision, Driver Defendant was operating the vehicle as the agent, servant, or employee of Owner Defendant and within the course and scope of that agency or employment, rendering Owner Defendant vicariously liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior.

30. Owner Defendant's negligent entrustment and/or vicarious liability was a direct and proximate cause of Plaintiff's injuries and damages. Plaintiff seeks judgment against Owner Defendant for its own negligence and any vicarious liability established by the allegations above, subject to applicable fault allocation.

7. DAMAGES

31. As a direct and proximate result of Defendants' conduct, Plaintiff has suffered and seeks recovery of the following:

• Past and future medical expenses — emergency, ambulance, hospital, surgical, diagnostic, rehabilitative, pharmaceutical, and physician care;
• Future medical and life care — anticipated surgeries, therapy, assistive devices, and long-term or attendant care, to be proven at trial;
• Lost wages and diminished earning capacity — past lost income and the permanent impairment of Plaintiff's ability to earn;
• Physical pain, suffering, and mental anguish — past and future;
• Permanent physical impairment and disfigurement, including scarring;
• Loss of enjoyment of life; and
• Property damage to personal effects, including loss of use.

32. Plaintiff pleads each category of damage separately and in the alternative.

8. PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, Plaintiff respectfully prays for judgment against each Defendant as permitted by law, including allocation by fault and any established vicarious liability, as follows:

• A. Compensatory damages [in the amount of $[SPECIFIED AMOUNT] / in an amount exceeding the amount required for federal diversity jurisdiction, to be determined by the trier of fact], sufficient to compensate Plaintiff fully;
• B. Pre-judgment and post-judgment interest as allowed by law;
• C. All costs of this action; and
• D. Such other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.

9. JURY DEMAND

Plaintiff demands a trial by jury on all issues so triable as a matter of right.

10. RESERVATION OF RIGHTS

Plaintiff reserves the right to amend this Complaint to add or substitute parties (including the John Doe Defendants), to assert additional claims (including a claim for punitive damages and any uninsured/underinsured-motorist claim), and to conform the pleadings to the evidence as discovery proceeds. Plaintiff specifically denies any comparative fault and asserts that Plaintiff exercised due care at all relevant times.

11. SIGNATURE AND SERVICE BLOCKS

Respectfully submitted this [____] day of [MONTH], 20[____].

/s/ [________________________________]

[ATTORNEY NAME] (Ark. Bar No. [________])

[LAW FIRM NAME]

Attorney for Plaintiff

[STREET ADDRESS]

[CITY, STATE ZIP]

Telephone: [NUMBER]

Email: [EMAIL]

Attachment A: Affidavit of Unknown Tortfeasor Identity

File this sworn affidavit with the Complaint if invoking Ark. Code § 16-56-125 for the John Doe defendants.

I, [PLAINTIFF OR PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY NAME], being duly sworn, state that I am [PLAINTIFF / PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY] in this action. The true identities of the persons or entities designated John Does 1–5 in the Complaint are unknown to me. The Complaint describes their alleged connection to the collision, and their names will be substituted when ascertained.

__________________________ Date: [__/__/____]

[AFFIANT NAME]

Subscribed and sworn to before me on [__/__/____].

__________________________

Notary Public

My commission expires: [DATE]

12. INITIAL SERVICE AND PROOF

After this Complaint is filed, obtain a summons for each Defendant and arrange service of the summons and a copy of this Complaint together under Ark. R. Civ. P. 4(c). The person who actually effects service must make proof to the clerk under Rule 4(d), using the applicable certificate, affidavit, or required delivery record. Do not certify service in advance or treat later-paper service on counsel as initial process.

13. ARKANSAS PRACTICE NOTES

• Damages demand. For an unliquidated claim, Rule 8(a) limits recovery below the federal diversity-jurisdiction amount when the demand states no dollar amount and does not say that recovery sought exceeds that amount. Select a demand supported by the facts; the bracketed alternatives in Prayer A are not both part of the filed complaint.
• Statute of limitations. Personal-injury actions in Arkansas must generally be commenced within three years of accrual. Ark. Code § 16-56-105. Confirm accrual and any tolling (e.g., minority, incapacity) before filing.
• MODIFIED COMPARATIVE FAULT — the central issue. Except for § 16-118-109, Ark. Code § 16-64-122 permits proportionately reduced recovery only when claimant fault is less than fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom recovery is sought; equal or greater claimant fault bars recovery.
• Crosswalk and due-care framework. The driver's duty to yield to a pedestrian in a marked or unmarked crosswalk is Ark. Code § 27-51-1202; the driver's overriding duty of due care to avoid colliding with any pedestrian — even one outside a crosswalk — is § 27-51-1204(d). Note the per-state checklist's reference to "§ 27-51-1205" is incorrect: § 27-51-1205 governs soliciting rides, and § 27-51-1203 governs the right half of a crosswalk; the pedestrian's outside-crosswalk yield duty is § 27-51-1204(a)–(c).
• Statutory violation. Under Central Oklahoma Pipeline, 2012 Ark. 157, a statutory violation is evidence of negligence, not negligence per se. Identify the applicable rule of the road and connect the violation to the facts and alleged injury.
• UM/UIM and hit-and-run. Arkansas is a fault state. Pedestrians may recover under their own (or a resident relative's) automobile policy's uninsured/underinsured-motorist and medical-payments coverage even though they were not occupying a vehicle, and UM coverage typically reaches hit-and-run/phantom-vehicle collisions where the at-fault driver is unidentified. Promptly identify and notify any applicable UM/UIM carrier, preserve the claim, comply with consent-to-settle and subrogation requirements, and coordinate with the third-party liability claim. Verify current statutory and policy requirements for uninsured-motorist coverage under Ark. Code § 23-89-403 and underinsured-motorist coverage under Ark. Code § 23-89-209.
• Fictitious-party / Doe practice. Ark. Code § 16-56-125(c) requires a sworn affidavit of unknown tortfeasor identity filed with the complaint before its tolling provision applies. Complete and file Attachment A if relying on that provision; confirm the other limitations and substitution requirements.
• Service. Rule 4(c) requires the summons and Complaint to be served together; Rule 4(d) calls for proof by the person who actually effected service. Strict compliance is required; defective service can defeat an otherwise timely action.

14. SOURCES AND REFERENCES

• Arkansas Code (Title 16 — Practice, Procedure, and Courts; Title 27 — Transportation) — https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/
• Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure, current through October 1, 2026, Rule 4(c) and (d)
• Ark. Code § 16-56-105 (three-year limitations) — https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-16/subtitle-5/chapter-56/section-16-56-105/
• Ark. Code § 16-64-122 (modified comparative fault; § 16-118-109 exception) — https://unicourt.github.io/cic-code-ar/transforms/ar/ocar/r78/gov.ar.code.title.16.html#t16c64s16-64-122
• Ark. Code § 27-51-1202 (pedestrians' right-of-way in crosswalks) — https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-4/chapter-51/subchapter-12/section-27-51-1202/
• Ark. Code § 27-51-1204 (pedestrians crossing at other than crosswalks; driver due-care duty) — https://law.justia.com/codes/arkansas/title-27/subtitle-4/chapter-51/subchapter-12/section-27-51-1204/
• Ark. Code § 27-51-201 et seq. (speed restrictions)
• Ark. Code § 23-89-403 (uninsured motorist coverage); § 23-89-209 (underinsured motorist coverage) — verify policy terms
• Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure (Rules 4, 8, 38)
• Arkansas Model Jury Instructions — Civil (AMI Civil) (Motor Vehicle; Pedestrian; Statutory Violation as Evidence of Negligence; Comparative Fault)

Disclaimer: This template is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. An attorney licensed in Arkansas must review and customize this document before filing. Laws, citations, and court rules change frequently; verify all authorities before use.