California Injury Lawyer Blog

Every single hour, 52 California residents are injured in a hit-and-run accident. According to statistics, each year over 19,000 people are injured and 150 are killed in such accidents. Here is one recent example – a mother and her three children were seriously injured in a crash in a South Los Angeles neighborhood. The victims were traveling in an SUV that was hit by a silver Mercedes, which, according to witnesses, ran a red light in the intersection. Firefighters had to extricate the victims from the wreckage. Paramedics performed CPR on two of the children, including an 18-month-old, who went into cardiac arrest following the high-speed crash. 

As for the driver of the Mercedes, he did not waste more than a few seconds to see what happened to the people in the other car, before he fled on foot. Local police were keeping an eye on the hospitals in the area as they believed the man might have been injured. 

What to do if you were involved in a hit-and-run?

Accidents involving box trucks and other large trucks can have particularly devastating consequences. Due to the immense size and weight of a box truck, a collision can result in significant harm to a victim’s person or property. Many factors can lead to box truck accidents, whether they result from the truck driver’s actions, a defective tire or other truck part, or even inclement weather conditions. Given these different scenarios, a plaintiff injured in a box truck accident must pay close attention to the role of fault when bringing claims against various defendants.

Recently, a chain reaction accident involving a large box truck left three people injured. The crash occurred in rainy conditions on the interchange between the 14 and 5 freeways in Santa Clarita. An earlier accident underneath a guardrail left a semi-truck flipped over and an SUV pinned against a wall. After this first accident, a box truck then veered over the guardrail above and landed upside-down on top of the semi-truck and SUV, further damaging the vehicles. Two people were transported to the hospital after the box truck crash, and one person was hospitalized after the first crash.

How Can You Demonstrate Fault in California Box Truck Accidents?

Determining fault in a box truck accident is not always straightforward and will depend on which parties a plaintiff names in a lawsuit. If suing the truck driver, one factor that can help a plaintiff demonstrate fault is the truck driver’s conduct while driving. For example, truck drivers may be operating their vehicle under the influence or engaging in distracted driving. A plaintiff would then need to prove that the driver’s carelessness caused the plaintiff’s injuries. In some situations, the plaintiff can also sue the truck driver’s company if the driver was operating the truck in the course of their employment with the company. Before recovering against the truck driver’s employer, the plaintiff must first prove the driver was negligent. This situation may be more complex if truck drivers exercise care while driving but lose control of their vehicle due to a faulty part. Under these circumstances, plaintiffs may also choose to sue the truck’s manufacturer or the company that made a specific defective part.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading