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green beerAlcohol and automobiles shouldn’t mix. When they do, bad things, including serious injuries, can happen. When those things do happen, sometimes vehicle accidents and injuries are involved. In those circumstances, it is important to have capable California car accident attorneys on your side to represent your interests and make sure you get everything the law says you deserve in your drunk driving accident case. In one such case (Case No. BC548489, Cal. Super. Ct. March 22, 2017), one man injured in a drunk driving case recently received $12 million from a Los Angeles County jury.

Lance was an employee of a property management company. On St. Patrick’s Day, he took out one of his clients (a board member of a homeowners association that his management firm represented) for drinks. After drinking, the men got back into a car, with Lance driving. While traveling down the Ventura Freeway, Lance struck another vehicle. The resulting crash caused serious injuries to the HOA board member. In fact, doctors nearly had to amputate the passenger’s right arm, which ultimately required 30 surgeries to treat, according to the passenger.

The passenger sued for his injuries. He didn’t just sue Lance, though; he also sued the management company for which Lance worked. In any injury case, it is important to identify all of the plausible avenues for obtaining recovery for your damages and advancing all of them in your litigation in order to give yourself a strong chance of success.

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spineWhenever you are taking on an insurance company in a personal injury case, you can expect that the insurer will defend itself with as many counter-arguments as possible. The defense may argue that your injuries weren’t results of your accident. The insurance company may argue that the treatment you received wasn’t really medically necessary. Regardless of the arguments advanced by the insurance company, you’ll need strong California car accident attorneys on your side to utilize the facts and the law related to your case to ensure that you get what you deserve.

One recent instance in which this occurred was a case arising out of a March 2011 Orange County car crash. Carmen suffered serious injuries in the collision. The crash was a result of another driver running a red light and slamming into her vehicle.

Although Carmen originally had no spinal tenderness or range-of-motion limitations, she eventually sought care from a chiropractor. She later saw an osteopath, who performed an MRI and diagnosed multiple disc protrusions in the lumbar and cervical spine. Eventually, Carmen underwent several epidural steroid injections to treat her back problems. These injections were extremely expensive, and the sum total of Carmen’s medical expenses quickly rose into the tens of thousands of dollars.

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flatbed truckAfter you’ve been injured in a vehicle crash, and you’ve decided to sue to seek the compensation you deserve, you likely will face off against a strong opposition from the defense. The defense may seek to escape liability by attempting to depict your case as one in which you were actually the one who was negligent and at fault. To give yourself the best chance of success, you may need to make sure that potentially harmful evidence that is too speculative to be reliable and admissible is kept out of your trial, which is one of many areas in which a skilled and determined San Mateo injury attorney can help.

The plaintiff in one recent case was injured in a terrible crash along the Pacific Coast Highway in June 2010. A semi truck driver had, after resting in a parking area next to the southbound lanes, been crossing the southbound lanes to turn left and head northbound when the plaintiff’s minivan struck the semi’s flatbed trailer, which was still in the southbound lanes.

The crash was so massive that it took 45 minutes to extract the plaintiff from the minivan’s driver’s seat. He had a fracture of his left shoulder, and the bone was protruding through the skin.

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forkliftA Southern California security guard recovered a judgment of $17 million for the injuries he suffered at work when a forklift ran over his leg, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. The injury was so severe that it ultimately necessitated the amputation of part of the guard’s right leg. The guard was able to succeed, in part, because his California personal injury attorney persuaded the jury that, although the guard was negligent, his negligence did not play a substantial role in causing the injuries that eventually cost the guard part of his leg.

The injured security guard worked at the Mira Loma facility of a now-bankruptcy publication. He was injured when a moving forklift at the facility struck him in the leg. The forklift was traveling in reverse at the time of the accident. The forklift actually dragged his leg for several feet and, in the process, crushed the guard’s leg and tore the skin off the leg. The business had to retrieve a second forklift and use the second forklift to get the first forklift off the guard’s leg.

Almost two years after the accident, doctors concluded that the man’s leg could not be completely saved and he underwent a partial amputation. By that time, he’d undergone “11 surgeries, several infections and months spent in hospitals and nursing homes,” according to the Press-Enterprise report.

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car accidentA jury in Sacramento recently awarded an injured plaintiff nearly $2.9 million in damages for the injuries the plaintiff suffered in a serious rear-end accident (Case 34-2013-00149232-CU-PA-GDS). The plaintiff’s evidence was enough to convince the jury that the harm from the accident had caused numerous serious injuries and forever altered the life of the very active 26-year-old plaintiff.

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gavel and moneyIn some cases, a plaintiff might receive an offer of settlement in their auto accident case. In other cases, a plaintiff might receive a judgment and a damages award in their favor. However, sometimes, a plaintiff may be entitled to receive a jury verdict award and enforce the terms of a settlement. One recent Bay Area case was an example of how this worked.

The litigation in this instance arose from an August 2009 rear-end crash in Alameda County. Two men in the lead car sued for the injuries they suffered. Since the men were on the job when the accident occurred, a third-party vendor of their employer paid a portion of their expenses, leaving each man and the vendor pursuing claims against the rear driver.

 

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door knockerIn any civil lawsuit, steps like marshaling all of the evidence that supports your case is an obviously important part of the process. There are other procedural details, however, that can be easier to overlook or, alternatively, easier to get wrong if you aren’t keenly familiar with the rules. In one recent case involving a fatal vehicle crash, the plaintiffs retained counsel, and they did comply with the rules, which is why their $2 million judgment survived a defendant’s challenge to the manner in which they provided service of process.

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truck crashSometimes, obtaining a truly successful outcome in your auto accident case involves not just proving your case and establishing your damages but also making sure that the judgment asserts liability against the right defendants. This is especially true if your damages award is large. Obtain a multi-million dollar judgment against an employee making $15 an hour, and you may recover only a small fraction of your total damages. Obtain that same judgment against the employee and his corporate employer, and you may have a much greater chance of obtaining the full amount of the damages awarded to you.

That is why, in many auto accident situations, it is beneficial, as a plaintiff, to pursue both a driver and the driver’s employer when possible. In many situations, the fact that the accident took place while the employee was commuting to work would close the door on obtaining a judgment against the employer. The “going and coming” rule of liability says that, if an employee causes an accident while going to or coming from work, the employer generally isn’t liable under a respondeat superior theory of liability. In one recent case originating in Orange County, a motorcyclist was allowed to pursue a driver’s employer, even though the accident occurred as the driver was traveling to work.

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burning carA Northern California mother, injured in a fiery crash when a street sweeper made a U-turn and hit her SUV, fought for nearly two years to obtain compensation for the harm she suffered. In the end, despite the defense’s attempts to paint the mother as partly at fault and its extremely low settlement offers, the jury found for the plaintiff and returned a damages award of $8.3 million for her past and future harm, according to the Napa Valley Register and juryverdictalert.com.

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motorcycleWhen you’re injured in an auto accident, you may be keenly familiar with the facts of your case. Winning your case, however, involves much more than just a strong presentation of facts. One recent Orange County case was a prime example of this. A motorcyclist won his case due in part to his legal team’s ability to keep out of evidence a potentially damaging statement that was not admissible.

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