California Injury Lawyer BlogEstablishing Premises Liability in a California Parking Lot Car Accident
When a person is injured on someone else’s property, California law may impose a duty of care on the owner to maintain the safety of their property. This is especially true when a property owner stands to benefit from other people’s use of their property. The classic example is a business that owns a parking lot so that customers can easily drive to and patronize their store. When an accident happens in a commercial parking lot, questions of liability for a victim’s injuries may be complex.
As a recent news article reported, one person died and several others suffered injuries after a car ran into a taco stand in Pomona, California. The taco stand was situated in a grocery store parking lot. As a driver entered the parking lot, she ran through the taco stand, scattering glass and taco supplies along the parking lot and flipping tables on the sidewalk. The crash injured twelve people and left at least one person dead. The driver fled the scene before later turning herself into authorities.
Can a Person Sue a Parking Lot Owner in California?
In California, a person can sue a parking lot owner for injuries suffered in a parking lot on certain conditions. To pursue a negligence claim against a parking lot owner, the owner must have a duty of care to the injured person. Typically, parking lot owners have a duty of care to maintain safe conditions in the parking lot for pedestrians and vehicles who patronize the parking lot. California also imposes a duty of care on property owners to warn guests of any potentially dangerous conditions that are not open and obvious. On the other hand, a parking lot owner can escape liability if the cause of the plaintiff’s injuries was so open and obvious that a reasonable person would have easily avoided it. The rationale behind this bar to recovery is that certain hazards should serve as warnings in and of themselves.
California is known for its miles of scenic roadways. As the most populated state in the U.S., California boasts 396,540 miles of roads on which thousands of drivers travel every day. Unfortunately, around 3,600 fatal crashes occur on California roads each year. Approximately 178,300 people per year suffer injuries from a California car accident. Not every road, however, has an equal number of crashes or fatalities.
Car accidents may result in physical, financial, or emotional harm to some or all parties involved in the crash. However, accidents in which a motor vehicle operator was driving under the influence (DUI) can be particularly devastating. Because drivers are under the influence, they often lack the ability to control their vehicles, leading to significant yet entirely preventable accidents. Too often, DUI crashes lead to severe injury or death of other drivers or their passengers, who frequently are not at fault for the accident.
Self-driving cars, once considered pure science fiction, now represent a multi-billion dollar industry. They have become increasingly popular on the roads and are hailed as significantly safer than regular cars. But a recent report by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that self-driving cars were involved in nearly 400 crashes in the past 10 months.
Commercial drivers carrying cargo are required to secure and maintain control over their truckloads. Spills can lead to cartoonish headlines and images of produce and consumer gadgets spread on a highway. But spills can also lead to injuries, and truck drivers must be held responsible.
For many drivers, turning left is a routine action with little consequence. But turning left can be dangerous—the driver must turn into oncoming traffic and consider a multitude of other hazards, like traffic light timing and the speed of other vehicles. When some drivers on the road are intoxicated or driving recklessly, the care taken by a driver in making their left turn could be irrelevant. And side impact collisions, or “T-bones”, can be deadly to passengers when drivers are making left turns.
The aftermath of a car accident can be stressful for those involved. Serious accidents may result in road closures as individuals who are injured receive necessary medical attention, and as the road is cleared from any debris left from the car accident. Knowing what to do after a serious car accident is vital.
Although devastating statistics and information about drunk driving are widely available and typically widely known by individuals, crashes involving drunk driving and driving while under the influence, unfortunately, happen every day. Alcohol and drugs impair judgment, which can lead to car accidents and serious injuries. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), every day, about 32 people in the United States die in drunk driving crashes. This equates to about one person every 45 minutes.
The advent of self-driving and AI-assisted driving systems has been accompanied by promises of increased driver and passenger safety, with some manufacturers suggesting that car accidents may become a relic of the past. Although self-driving vehicles offer some increased safety benefits when compared to standard vehicles, there are unique dangers to self-driving vehicles, and several people have been injured or killed by what appear to be defects or malfunctions in the self-driving function. The United States federal government is opening an investigation into one such crash involving a Tesla Model S that killed three people earlier this year in California.
Speeding on California roads is a leading cause of injuries and deaths statewide. When people choose to drive high-performance vehicles that are capable of traveling well in excess of the posted speed limits, they are assuming responsibility for the consequences of a crash they may cause by speeding. A California court recently accepted a settlement to be paid to the family of a woman who was killed by a reckless driver behind the wheel of a Lamborghini supercar.