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If you’ve driven around San Mateo or anywhere in the Bay Area, you know that traffic jams can be a headache. With traffic jams, in addition to stop signs and traffic signals, there are plenty of circumstances where you’ll be stopped in traffic, and situations where you’re at risk of being injured in a chain reaction or other rear-end accident. When you find yourself in that painful and stressful situation, be sure to reach out promptly to an experienced San Mateo car accident lawyer about your situation.

Recently, one Northern California chain reaction accident, which was reported by NBC Bay Area, occurred on Highway 12 in Fairfield and claimed the life of one traveler. Before the accident, four eastbound drivers stopped at a red light. The eastbound driver of a Mercedes van did not. The van rear-ended a Volkswagen, which rear-ended a Honda, which rear-ended a BMW, which rear-ended an Audi. The driver of the Volkswagen did not survive.

In any kind of chain reaction accident, there are several keys to determining fault and putting oneself in a position to succeed in court. When it comes to assessing blame, the central question generally is, “Which driver caused the first accident?” That driver, generally speaking, will be the one at fault. In the Fairfield crash, based on the news reports’ description of the crash, the drivers of Volkswagen, Honda, BMW and Audi all followed the rules of the road and operated their vehicles safely. The driver of the Mercedes did not, and that driver’s negligence potentially was the sole cause of all damages that occurred, if the evidence supported the description published in the news.

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Motorcycle accidents often are seriously harmful or even fatal for the motorcyclist involved. If you’ve been hurt while driving your motorcycle (or a loved one has been killed on his motorcycle,) you have certain legal options and you need to be sure that your legal advocate is a knowledgeable San Mateo motorcycle accident attorney who thoroughly understands the unique aspects of a motorcycle crash and the peculiar needs of a motorcyclist.

P. R.-V.’s accident, which occurred in 2017, is a story that is all too familiar to motorcyclists. According to a NBC 7 report, the man was driving his motorcycle down Main Street in Chula Vista when the driver of a SUV failed to see him and pulled out of the driveway of a storage facility. The SUV pulled directly into the motorcycle’s path and the two collided. According to at least one witness, the woman driving the SUV “stopped for 10 seconds,” but subsequently took off. The 30-year-old motorcyclist died at the scene.

The police eventually found the SUV after a few days and, several weeks after that, apprehended the hit-and-run driver. This man’s wife and child were fortunate that law enforcement officers were eventually able to track down the driver who collided with the motorcyclist. If the driver had never been located, it would have been vastly more difficult for the widow to obtain a successful outcome in court.

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Often times, when one thinks of personal injury litigation in an auto accident, one envisions an accident that involved at least two vehicles. It might be tempting to assume that if one is injured as a driver in a single-vehicle accident, then there is no other driver to sue and therefore no chance of recovery. That’s not necessarily true. There may be a variety of sets of facts that may allow you, as a driver in a single-vehicle accident, to sue and secure a much-needed judgment or settlement. To be sure you go about this kind of action in the most effective way possible, be sure you have an experienced San Mateo injury attorney on your side.

There are certain road or highway issues that can affect some drivers more acutely than others. For example, potholes in the road might do damage to your car, truck or SUV, but are less likely to cause you to suffer personal injuries. As a motorcyclist, you risk is much higher. As is the case in so many motorcycle accidents, the biker is at an elevated risk of injury from anything that would cause the biker to be thrown from the bike, as that would result in him/her striking the ground with significant force.

That was what happened to a motorcyclist in San Pedro, according to his lawsuit. The motorcyclist, P.R.A., crashed in October 2015 after he hit several potholes along Western Avenue, according to a Patch.com report. In the crash, the motorcyclist hit his head and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. The injury left the man with permanent brain damage and meant that he faced a lifetime of never being independent again, with caretakers required to meet many needs that most of us take for granted.

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Almost anyone who has ever lost a close loved one in an accident will very plainly state that there’s no amount of money they wouldn’t trade to have their loved one back. Nevertheless, wrongful death civil lawsuits that seek monetary compensation serve a very important purpose for the family members left behind. Your loved one was priceless, but you still have to pay many expenses – like funeral and final expense costs, along with the medical bills your deceased loved one racked up in that final accident – and those payments require money.

Additionally, there’s the income that your loved one brought in. Your loved one may have been a primary earner, or even a sole earner, for your family. The loss of his/her loss income may represent a severe and immediate financial crisis for your family. A successful wrongful death case can help you reduce that financial emergency. To make sure that you are getting the total amount of compensation that you and your family deserve, be sure to reach out to an experienced San Mateo wrongful death attorney about your case.

Wrongful death cases can be challenging ones for juries because, at some level, they require the jury to take a profound, and in some ways incalculable, loss and convert it to an exact dollar figure. That means that you may face, if you and your family take on a wrongful death case, a defense that argues that, because your loved one earned a modest income, the damages amount of his/her loss should be set at a low number. That was what one Fresno-area widow faced recently in her case, according to the Fresno Bee.

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When you are injured as a pedestrian, you may recognize that you have an opportunity to seek compensation in court, but you may not know the best way to go about getting the full and fair recovery you deserve. You know to sue the driver who hit you, but the facts of your case could indicate that there are more people or entities who owe you compensation. That’s why, whenever you’re hurt in a pedestrian accident, it is well worth your while to retain the services of an experienced San Mateo injury attorney.

One tragic case where that issue (of multiple at-fault parties) was a factor was the fatal accident that claimed the life of K.P., a Cal State East Bay student. According to a Mercury News report, K.P. was out for a jog around noon, just five blocks from her home, when the accident took place. Two men who had been street racing crashed into one another. The crash sent one of the vehicles, a Nissan Altima, careening off the road. It bounced off some utility trucks and then slammed into the jogger, pinning her against a tree, according to the report. She died at the scene.

Certainly, the driver who struck and killed K.P. would be liable to her family for the harm that he was proven to have caused. However, in a circumstance like this, the extent of liability doesn’t stop there. The other driver (the one who did not directly hit the jogger) is also liable for his negligent or reckless conduct.

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For many people who undertake civil lawsuits after they’ve lost a loved one due to another’s negligence or misconduct, the lawsuit is an important means to an essential end. The deceased may have been a primary, or even sole, income provider for an entire family, and a civil judgment or settlement may be necessary to pay outstanding medical bills and final expenses, as well as to avoid a financial crisis from the loss of the deceased’s earnings.

Sometimes, though, the money from a judgment or settlement isn’t as much of a need. Whether it is due to insurance payouts or other financial reasons, the deceased’s death, while undeniably taking an incalculable emotional toll, may not have created as much of a financial hardship. Even in that latter scenario, there may be very important reasons for undertaking a civil lawsuit and seeing it through to a judgment. Whether it is seeking closure, seeing justice done or some other reason, these reasons are just as valid, require just as much diligence, and are cases just as much in need of a thoughtful and experienced San Mateo wrongful death attorney as any other.

There are cynics among us who say, “Even when they say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.” Here’s a case, reported by keyt.com, that disproves that notion. The victim in the case was a popular Southern California assistant principal, who was out jogging when he was struck and killed by an intoxicated driver, who was reportedly high on Xanax and marijuana at the time.

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When you are injured in a bicycle accident that takes place on public property, there may be multiple ways to utilize the legal system. For example, if your accident occurred in a construction area on a public road, you may have a viable case against the government responsible for the road, the construction company doing the work and any other entities directly involved in the job. For reliable advice about whom you should pursue for compensation, be sure to rely on an experienced San Mateo injury attorney who has the experience and skill to get you the positive result you deserve.

S.D. was a man injured in a single-vehicle bicycle accident. According to an NBC 7 report, he was bicycling to work one December morning in 2017, traveling down the southbound bicycle lane of a street in San Diego. That same morning, construction crews were digging several large trenches as part of excavation work they were performing. The bicyclist hit a two-foot-wide ditch in the bicycle lane and the impact threw him from his cycle. When he landed, his head struck a big pile of dirt and rock, which caused the man to suffer injuries.

Those injuries were life-changing. The bicyclist suffered a cervical spine injury that left him with permanent quadriplegia. In other words, this previously active person would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

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Many forms of futuristic technology are becoming reality today. KCRA in Sacramento reported that new California regulations could allow companies to deploy self-driving delivery vehicles by the end of 2019. Another source reported on a pizza company, once famous (or infamous) for its fleet of youthful drivers racing down streets to delivery customers’ pizzas in “30 minutes or less,” that hopes to have robots and self-driving vehicles handling those home deliveries in some locations before the end of this year.

Modern technology is, of course, a wonderful thing… when it works. Unfortunately, Californians have already seen the consequences when self-driving vehicle technology fails. A 38-year-old Bay Area engineer died when his autonomous Tesla vehicle misinterpreted the lines on Highway 101 and steered the vehicle into a concrete barrier, killing the man. A pedestrian in neighboring Arizona died after an autonomous Uber vehicle failed to stop as she walked her bicycle across a road.

So, would you know what to do if you were injured in an accident caused by a self-driving vehicle? You might know generally that the law gives you an opportunity to sue, but it would also be entirely reasonable to think that you wouldn’t know exactly how to do that, including what to assert and who to sue. Your experienced California injury lawyer is there to help.

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California law is quite clear about the responsibility that property owners have toward people legally on their property. The statutes here say that “Everyone is responsible, not only for the result of his or her willful acts, but also for an injury … to another by his or her want of ordinary care or skill in the management of his or her property.” When you are injured in a trip-and-fall accident, there are several key pieces to the “puzzle” of a successful legal action. One is proof of a legitimate hazard. Another is evidence that the person or entity responsible for the property failed to fix the problem, despite the fact that it knew or should have known the hazard existed.

There are many different ways to achieving this proof burden, but it comes down to obtaining the right evidence. To make sure you are getting all the evidence you need and that it is being put together into one coherent and persuasive case, be sure to rely on the skill and experience of a knowledgeable San Mateo injury attorney.

An example of how this process can work successfully was the recent case of A.N. (Yolo County Superior Court Case. No. CVPO-2017-916). Reportedly, A.N. suffered serious injuries in a trip-and-fall accident at her senior living apartment complex in West Sacramento. One day, while exiting the complex’s clubhouse, 80-year-old A.N. used a ramp to walk back to her apartment. A concrete parking block was situated at the base of the ramp. The resident tried to pass through this area, but she tripped. In the fall, she suffered a broken wrist, crushed patella and a “burst” fracture to one of her thoracic vertebrae.

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When you are injured on the property of someone else, that person or that person’s insurance company may be well-represented by attorneys, who stand ready to make clever arguments that creatively use the law to try to get the defendant out of paying you any compensation. To make sure you are equipped to succeed in your injury case, you need an experienced San Mateo premises liability attorney who knows the law well and knows how to advocate for you and get results.

What do we mean by “creative” uses of the law? Here’s an example. E.H. was a man working as a “site representative” giving tours of a notable architectural residence in Beverly Hills when he was hurt in the fall of 2014. During his fateful tour, the representative fell from a platform that was “suspended over a hillside.” The fall caused E.H. to suffer very serious injuries, including multiple spinal fractures, from which he allegedly suffered more than $2 million in damages.

E.H. sued. When you sue someone in civil court, you will present your evidence showing that the defendant was liable and that you suffered compensable harm. The defense will present its evidence, including bringing up any affirmative defenses, which are things that the defense affirmatively pleads and, if accepted by the jury, make the defendant not liable.

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