$16,000 Legal Fight For Lindsay Lohan Over Paparazzi Incident

Driving just isn't a privilege everybody can handle. In Lindsay Lohan's case, the shenanigans get so out-of-hand, "Carmina Burana" should start playing somewhere around her every time she jingles a set of keys.

As the plot thickens by the day surrounding Friday's Pacific Coast Highway rented-Porsche wreck with an 18-wheeler, E! Online now reports that the "Mean Girls" star faces a $16,000 bitch slap courtesy of the paparazzo she allegedly side-swiped a while back.

Two years ago, photographer Grigor Balyan claims, Lohan struck him with her vehicle as he tried snapping a few lucrative stills to pay the bills outside a Los Angeles nightclub. Balyan filed suit this past January, and it now looks like Lohan could owe upward of $16,468 just to cover Balyan's medical expenses. It may not end there, though: he's also seeking compensation over lost wages, damaged property, loss of property and what E! nebulously calls "general damages."

It's not all bad news, though: former co-defendants Tri Star Sports Entertainment and Paolo Demara, Lohan's driver, have been dropped from the suit. Lohan reportedly received the complain Sunday, and should now have an Aug. 7 hearing penciled in.

The fallout from Lohan's most recent wreck just gets more complicated by the day. First, the actress claimed it wasn't her but her assistant that was behind the wheel when she was on her way to shooting for Lifetime's "Liz & Dick," featuring Lohan playing Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor. She recanted that and admitted being behind the wheel, but maintained that the 18-wheeler's driver cut her off in traffic - and that brake failure caused the crash. In turn, the other driver and multiple witnesses claimed that Lohan's people tried paying the driver off before police arrived.

Additionally, word surfaced yesterday that police confiscated a bottle from the trunk of Lohan's rented Porsche allegedly containing vodka. That's a serious no-no, since Lohan is coming off supervised probation for DUI and theft charges.

Nor can trouble like this bode well for the possibility Lohan could star as planned in the Bret Easton Ellis-scripted, Paul Schrader-directed indie project "The Canyons" as announced Tuesday.