San Francisco Injury Attorney Blog

A San Diego jury heard a case involving a Pizza Hut driver who blacked out while driving, resulting in a severe personal injury accident. The driver claims that she had no prior knowledge that she was subject to blackouts, and does not remember what happened in the accident. Under California law, a driver can be relieved of responsibility for an injury accident when unforseen medical condition causes a blackout.

This type of injury car accident, with a driver blackout, happens with some frequency here in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since the law will allow a party to avoid responsibility when the potential for blackouts was unknown, these cases involve much investigation into the driver's medical history, and exactly how the blackout happened. A San Francisco case that received a lot of attention a few years back involved an elderdly driver who lost control of his Cadillac while headed down a very steep hill, causing a severe accident. In that case, though, witnesses saw that the driver's eyes were open as he sped down the hill, and his estate was held responsible for all the personal injuries that the accident caused in San Francisco's Noe Valley.

In the San Diego injury case, the injured parties' lawyers knew that Pizza Hut and the driver might be relieved from responsibility due to an unforseen medical condition, so they added claims that Pizza Hut should have done more to make sure that the driver was fit to drive. The jury rejected those claims, since the driver had a license and a good driving record, but found that the driver had some prior knowledge of the medical condition which caused the seizure, and was therefore responsible for the personal injuries. This in turn made Pizza Hut responsible as the employer of the driver at fault. News reports state that the jury came back with a verdict of $10.8 million.