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Areas of Practice
Personal Injury
Auto Accidents
We are a seasoned law firm with 25-years of trial experience and
settlement experience. We have handled multi-million dollar cases
throughout California and a few out-of-state cases including Arizona.
Our involvement in multi-million dollar cases include cases of Lloyd
v. Lane, Castro v. Ford Motor Company, Iglesia De Dios No. Sectria,
Inc., Vera Hayes vs. Dennis Dean Swiden, Coast to Coast Limo
Services, Schade v. City of Fullerton,
We do cases involving owners, operators, and passengers; cases
involving pedestrians; actions by property owners; law suits
involving negligent entrustment and vicarious liability; and actions
against manufacturers, dealers, lessors, and repairers, as well as
actions against insurance companies.
As in personal injury cases generally, our retainer agreement
usually expresses a contingent fee agreement with a lien for
attorneys fees on any recovery, provides for reimbursement of
litigation costs.
We do cases involving uninsured motorists or underinsured motorists
whereby if you are an insured motorist and the other person is not,
you may have a cause of action against your own insurance company
for your injuries and damages if you have an uninsured clause or an
underinsured clause in your policy.
Arbitration proceedings may sometimes be the more appropriate means
of resolving an automobile accident dispute. Arbitration is less
costly than trial and more often than not, results in an award that
nets our clients more money in their pocket than could be expected
at trial.
Both pedestrians and motorists have an equal right to the use of the
highway, and both should exercise due care consistent with the
situation confronting them. But while it is the duty of both the
driver of an automobile and a pedestrian using a public roadway to
exercise ordinary care, that duty does not necessarily require the
same amount of caution from each in particular circumstances or
situations.
The amount of care which must be exercised by a pedestrian or driver
in looking for danger or maintaining a lookout under particular
circumstances and whether or not particular acts were done or were
sufficient to meet the standard of reasonable care under the
circumstances are usually questions of fact.
Although both pedestrians and drivers are chargeable with the
exercise of the same degree of care, that is, ordinary care,
nevertheless a driver operating an automobile is charged with a duty
to use a greater amount of such care than is required of the
pedestrian since the instrumentality the driver is propelling is
capable of inflicting serious and fatal injuries on others using the
highway.
Whether expressed in terms of degree, standard, or amount of care,
the care required in dealing with agencies that because of their
power or momentum or other reasons are liable to do great injury is
greater than that required under other circumstances. The driver of
a motor vehicle, therefore, when ordinarily careful, will be alertly
conscious of the fact that he is in charge of a machine capable of
projecting any negligence of his own into serious consequences, and
his caution must be adequate to that responsibility as related to
all the surrounding circumstances.
A possessor of land who creates an excavation or other artificial
condition so near an existing highway that he realizes or should
realize that it involves an unreasonable risk to others brought into
contact with it while traveling with reasonable care on the highway
is subject to liability for bodily harm caused to them. In
determining whether the condition is one which creates an
unreasonable risk of bodily harm to persons traveling the highway,
the determining factor is whether it is so placed that travelers may
come in contact with it while carefully traveling the highway, as by
being forced off the road by other traffic, by skidding on a
slippery surface, or by a misstep while walking on a highway.
NEGLIGENT ENTRUSTMENT
A person who knowingly or negligently entrusts an automobile in a
defective condition to another or who knowingly or negligently
entrusted to an incompetent driver is liable for injuries arising
from operation of that automobile.
An automobile owner who employs an independent contractor to
maintain his vehicle does not escape liability for injury caused by
a defective condition of the automobile where the defective
condition is a result of the independent contractors failure to
discover or repair it. An owners duty to maintain his automobile in
a safe condition may not be delegated to another.
We do cases involving liability for damages resulting from
automobile collisions of persons who are not directly liable for
such damages but whose liability is based on their relationship with
the automobile owner. Such persons are automobile owners, bailees of
the owners, personal representatives of the owners, parents and
persons signing and verifying a minors drivers license application,
principles, employers, partners, and joint venturers.
Motorcycle Accidents
We have handled numerous motorcycle accidents in our 25 years of
experience; for example motorcycle v. automobile, motorcycle v.
truck, motorcycle v. drunk driving cases.
A motorcycle by definition is a motor vehicle and a motorcyclist is
subject to the same general duties as the driver of any other motor
vehicle. Likewise, drivers of other vehicles owe a duty of care to a
motorcyclist the same as they owe to the drivers of any other motor
vehicles.
Boating Accidents
We have had numerous cases involving boating accidents and boating
related accidents. One Published case is Kiernan v. Capo Beach
Parasailing, a Federal case, decided in our favor at the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals. We are very familiar with maritime law involving
boating accidents.
Typical boating accident cases might include personal injury to both
passengers, personal injury to a water skier, boat collisions,
collision between a boat and a stationary object such as a pier,
personal injury and property damage suffered by a purchaser - user
of a boat that is defective, wrongful death of a guest passenger,
controversy between co-owners as to the user repair or repair of a
boat, breach of contract to build, repairs, store, rent, or furnish
supplies or equipment for a boat.
In the absence of any of other controlling standard of proper
conduct, there exists a standard of due care and good seamen ship
such as that exercised by a prudent mariner of ordinary skill under
the particular circumstances. For example, an operator of a vessel
may be liable for negligent failure to insure that the vessel is not
loaded over its rated capacity before taking it out to sea. An owner,
in turn, may be liable for negligence in choosing an operator who
lacks a working knowledge of the navigational rules.
Common cases involve collisions between a moving vessel and a
stationary vessel or some other object, in which case their is a
rebuttable presumption of negligence on the part of the moving
vessel. Similarly, a presumption of negligence arises against a
vessel that shears into another, that is, deviates from a safe
course to one resulting in a collision, and also against a vessel
that, in passing a smaller vessel, creates swells that damages the
smaller vessel or injures those on board.
There are also duties that arise after a collision has occurred that
may also affect the liability of those in charge of a vessel. A
master or individual in charge of a vessel involved in a marine
casualty must render necessary assistance to safe any individual
from danger caused by the casualty, as far as possible without
seriously endangering the vessel or those on board. In addition, a
master or individual in charge of a vessel whether or not involved
in a marine casualty, must render assistance to any individual found
at sea in danger of being lost, to the extent possible without
seriously endangering the vessel or those on board.
Airplane Accidents
In our 25 years of experience we have represented injured passengers
in several airplane accident cases, including the Cerritos Air Crash
Disaster case in 1986.
General rules of negligence normally apply in aviation accident
cases. Under California law generally, every person is liable for an
injury occasioned to another by his or her lack of ordinary care or
skill in the management of his or her property or person. As a
general rule, a pilot may breach the duty of care by either
operating a plane in a negligent manner, or by exceeding his or her
capabilities as demonstrated by licensed limitations.
To comply with the duty of care, the pilot of an airplane must
maintain a vigilance / to see and avoid other aircraft, bad weather,
weight turbulence and land obstructions. As a general rule, when
natural conditions such as wind or turbulence combined with pilot
negligence to produce an accident, the pilot is liable.
Ground aviation personnel, such as air traffic controllers and air
craft mechanics, may be liable for an airplane accident. For example,
an air traffic controller may be liable for negligently failing to
give all information in the controllers manual, and in addition, for
failure to give warnings not in the manuals when there is an
immediate and extreme danger.
The manufacturer of an airplane may be liable for negligence in
design or manufacturing defect which is the cause of an airplane
accident.
Slip and Fall
We have handled numerous slip-and-fall accident cases in the last 25
years, both commercial, as well as residential slip and falls.
Typical slip and fall cases involve the negligence of the owner,
possessor, or architect of a particular premises that was the cause
of personal injuries a person has suffered in a slip and fall
accident. These cases are against an owner or possessor of a
premises who has created and/or failed to discover, correct, or warn
of a dangerous condition on the premises which caused a person to
fall. These types of cases can occur in grocery stores, shopping
malls, restaurants, other commercial establishments, as well as in
private homes.
An owner or possessor of property has the duty of keeping floors dry
and free from foreign substances so that they are reasonably safe to
walk across. For example, the owner or possessor of property is
liable for injuries resulting from unreasonably loose carpeting or
unsafe floor mats, and for dangerous or defective stairs and
banisters.
Third Party Workers Comp.
We have handled numerous workers compensation third party cases
throughout the state of California. We have been successful in
receiving judgments in excess of a million dollars. We have handled
cases in which the Plaintiff was not a registered alien. We have
been successful in going after the third party not only against the
landowner but products liability as well as other employees from
other trades and have secured judgments on behalf of our clients in
the area of third party workers compensation cases.
An employees right of action against a third person is not barred by
the fact that the employee has recovered workers compensation
benefits. Suits against third parties are available in a number of
factual situations in which a worker in injured on a job site. For
example, an employee who is injured by a defective product
manufactured by another party other than his employer has the right
to maintain an action against the manufacturer of the product.
An employee may also have a cause of action against a different
company at a job site when the other company's employee injures the
worker. For example if several companies are working at a housing
construction site has a cause of action against another company's
employee who injures the worker by dropping a piece of wood on him,
or who negligently digs a hole that collapses upon the worker, or
who negligently erects a scaffolding that collapses from under the
worker.
Assault and Battery
In 25 years we have been involved with numerous cases of assault and
battery. The key emphasis here is the source of the funds and proper
way of alleging complaints to get into the insurance area of many
homeowner policies outside the intentional tort area which is
excluded by insurance.
Typical cases involve the liability of both the parent and his or
her child for assaults and batteries committed by the child, the
liabilities of aiders and abetters to an assault and battery, the
vicarious liability of an employer for assaults and batteries
committed by an employee, and the items of damages recoverable in an
action for assault and battery.
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Cases also involved the negligent failure to prevent an assault and
battery by a third person, the liability of the owner or possessor
of land for failure to prevent assaults or batteries, the liability
of a physician for performing medical treatment without consent or
for failure to disclose the risks of treatment in obtaining the
patient's consent, in cases involving false imprisonment and false
arrests as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Elder Abuse
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