Rideshare Accident Lawyer in Tennessee

Tennessee's statute of limitations for rideshare accident claims is one year from the date of the crash under T.C.A. § 28-3-104(a)(1)(A) — the shortest in the country. In rideshare cases, where the determination of which insurance tier applies depends on the driver's app status at the exact moment of the crash, one year is an aggressively short window. Trip records, app logs, GPS data, and driver-app screenshots must be subpoenaed before the TNC purges them. The one-year SOL means the preservation letter, the insurance investigation, the medical documentation, and the demand must all happen in compressed parallel.

Tennessee's TNC insurance structure under T.C.A. § 55-12-141 provides two tiers. Period 1 (driver logged on to the TNC's digital network but not engaged in a prearranged ride): $50,000 per person bodily injury, $100,000 per accident bodily injury, $25,000 property damage under § 55-12-141(c)(1). Periods 2 and 3 (driver engaged in a prearranged ride, from acceptance through passenger drop-off): $1,000,000 for death, bodily injury, and property damage combined under § 55-12-141(d)(1). Coverage may be satisfied by the driver's policy, the TNC's commercial policy, or any combination under § 55-12-141(c)(3) and (d)(3).

Tennessee's first-dollar gap coverage rule is among the strongest in the nation. T.C.A. § 55-12-141(e) provides: if the driver's coverage has lapsed or does not provide the required coverage, the TNC's policy must provide the required coverage 'beginning with the first dollar of a claim and have the duty to defend such claim.' Section 55-12-141(f) further provides that TNC coverage 'shall not be dependent on a personal automobile insurer first denying a claim, nor shall a personal automobile insurance policy be required to first deny a claim.' Meanwhile, T.C.A. § 56-7-1118(b) authorizes personal auto insurers to exclude all coverage (liability, UM/UIM, MedPay, comp/collision) while the driver is logged on to a TNC platform. The combined effect: the TNC's commercial policy is almost always the primary recovery source for rideshare crashes in Tennessee.

T.C.A. § 56-7-1118(f) requires TNCs and any insurer potentially providing coverage to cooperate in claim investigations by exchanging the precise times the driver logged on and off the digital network in the 12-hour window before and after the accident. This is the critical evidentiary hook for period determination. Without this data, the insurer can deny coverage by disputing the driver's period status. The 12-hour cooperation rule gives the plaintiff's attorney a statutory basis to compel the exact app-log data needed to establish which insurance tier applies. Tennessee's strict 50% comparative fault bar under McIntyre v. Balentine applies to rideshare claims — if the passenger's fault equals or exceeds 50%, recovery is zero.