San Francisco Injury Attorney Blog

I get many calls from people who were injured in San Francisco, Oakland, and the greater Bay Area in falls in stores or restaurants. Often times, the callers think that falling in a store or restaurant automatically means that they can recover damages. And to a very limited extent they are actually right: most businesses here in the San Francisco Bay Area have something called "premises medical payments" insurance coverage. This is a category of insurance that will pay medical bills for someone injured on the insured premises, irrespective of any negligence or fault. Unfortunately, this "medical payments" coverage is usually very limited-$2,000 or $5,000 are common policy limits. To recover anything else, you will have to prove that the property owner did something wrong.

Many of these cases, known to lawyers as premises liability cases, involve a substance or thing on the floor, such as a spilled liquid, or some merchandise, packing, or other items. To recover full compensation from the store or restaurant in this situation, we have to be able to prove one of two things: Either the staff caused the dangerous condition or knew about it, and that they had an opportunity to remedy it, but failed to do so. Often we don't know, and can't prove, how the thing that caused the fall got on the floor. If we can show that an employee caused the condition, there's no need to prove they had notice of it. In other cases, the law assumes that the store or restaurant owner knew about the dangerous condition if there's evidence that it was there for about a half-hour, or if there's evidence that an employee actually saw it or was told about it. Thus, if you slip on something spilled by another customer just a few minutes earlier, you may not have a case. Stores maintain "sweep logs" to use when claims are made, to show they have met their duty to inspect regularly. Sometimes, we find that the store did a better job filling in the log than they did actually inspecting the floors, though. These cases can be tough and hard-fought in California.

Continue reading "Proving Fault In A Bay Area Slip or Trip and Fall Injury" »

In California, and about half the other states, the law requires minors to wear a helmet when on bikes. Bike accident statistics strongly support the position that helmets save lives for adults as well as kids involved in bike accidents. But no U.S. state requires adult riders to wear helmets, as many do for motorcycle riders. Some cities, though, including El Cerrito, California, require everyone to bike with a helmet. Where you stand on the question of whether adults should also be required to use helmets for biking probably involves not only you views on safety, but also your views on how much the government should tell us what to do when the only person at risk is ourselves. I have found it interesting to see that in Europe, there are lots more adults using bicycles for urban transportation, and the great majority of them are not wearing helmets. Case in point: the man in Amsterdam biking with a tote bag in the photo with this post.

From a safety perspective, there is strong evidence that helmets make a big difference in bike accidents: an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study showed that over 90 percent of the 714 bicyclists killed in 2008 were not wearing helmets. Even a light blow to the head can result in a minor traumatic brain injury (MTBI). Neurologists and neurosurgeons report that those of us over 30 experience some brain shrinkage, which results in more bouncing around in the skull when we strike our heads.

If you are shopping for a helmet, be sure to choose one that is approved by the Federal Products Safety Commission, which does safety testing for bike helmets. Cycling experts agree that helmets should be replaced after an accident, as the foam can lose some of its ability to absorb impact, even when it appears to be undamaged.

Continue reading "San Francisco Bike Accidents: Should the Helmet Law Apply to Adults?" »

One question people injured in car accidents in San Francisco, Oakand, and all over the Bay Area have been asking me for many years is whether or not they should hire an attorney to handle their injury claims. Of course, they know that an lawyer is not an unbiased source of information on this question. But it's my duty to give the most even-handed advice I can. If I don't think I can add value to the client's bottom line recovery, I will not take a case. For some small cases, with a fairly quick, full recovery, the answer is no, you may not need an attorney. In that type of case, even the lower settlement you get may be about equal to what you could pocket after attorney's fees and costs were deducted from a higher settlement. Small claims court is another viable option for people who are comfortable presenting their case to a judge, and the recovery limit was raised to $7,500 a few years ago.

But for cases much beyond the small claims court limit, a good personal injury lawyer will most often be able to get you much more in your pocket than you could achieve on your own. Insurance carriers just don't take unrepresented injury claimants very seriously. They know that they won't be able to evaluate the true worth of the case, and that they will probably just settle for what they can get. Also, most of us who don't do it for a living are poor negotiators--just look at what happens at car dealerships. The major auto insurance carriers also rank lawyers, and settlements can vary depending on who you choose. They know that some lawyers like to settle other cases, and that others will take them to court and fight until their client's claim is compensated fairly.

Continue reading "How to decide if you need a lawyer for your San Francisco car accident case" »

A woman burned by hot tea at a Starbucks has sued the chain, alleging negligence. This will no doubt bring back memories of the infamous McDondald's coffee case of years past, where a woman sued after spilling hot coffee into her lap that she had purchased in a drive-through window. In San Francisco, or anywhere in the Bay Area, I cannot go to court and select a jury without hearing about that McDonald's coffee case from many, many prospective jurors. That case really touched a nerve with the public. Since the new case against Starbucks happened in New York, I looked at the reader comments on the NY Daily News website. No surprise: 44 out of 44 comments were negative about the case.

I have no idea whether this Starbucks case has merit or not. In the McDonald's case, the woman who was burned was able to prove to the jury that McDonald's was keeping its coffee about 40-50 degrees hotter than the industry standard, and that McDonald's knew that this had caused severe burns in over 700 people on prior occasions. If the plaintiff in this Starbucks case cannot show that Starbucks was out of line with the industry standards, as McDonald's was, I predict this case will fall flat, as most people seem to think it should. Either way, the publicity from this NY case is likely to cause more people to be skeptical about San Francisco personal injury lawsuits.

Continue reading "Starbucks Sued For Burns From Hot Tea" »

In the San Francisco Bay Area, most Kaiser medical malpractice claims in San Francisco and the Bay Area are normally heard in a private arbitration, rather than proceeding in court. This is due to the Kaiser arbitration agreement, which calls for arbitration in Kaiser's own system, uder their own rules. Arbitration is a system where cases are heard with the same procedural rules as a court trial, but in a private setting, before an arbitrator, or panel of three arbitrators, who serve as the judge.

The Kaiser malpractice arbitration system is overseen by an independent office. The independent administrator was set up after a notorious case where Kaiser delayed even choosing an arbitrator so long that the claimant died before the case could proceed, cutting Kaiser's liability substantially. Now, recent California court decisions have found that the forms Kaiser used until recently are invalid, for failing to comply with strict legal requirements that apply to waiver of the right to a jury trial. So for many people with malpractice claims against Kasier in Northern California, there is a choice: proceed under the Kaiser arbitration system for a malpractice claim, or sue in court.

The choice often will be heavily influenced by the venue of the case-the county in which a court case would be heard. If the venue is a big urban area such as Alameda County or San Francisco, lawyers agree that there is a much greater chance of getting jurors who are willing to find for a person suing a doctor or Kaiser. The individual facts of the case will also be part of the decision. The conventional wisdom is that in arbitration, even a victory will often be a compromise, compared to what a sympathetic jury might award. The Kaiser arbitration system draws from a panel of about 250 lawyers and judges, and many of these people are perceived as wanting to please Kaiser, such that attorneys for claimants would not see them as fair. Often it is a struggle getting a reasonable arbitrator in the Kaiser system.

The question of whether to opt out of the Kasier arbitration system for malpractice cases is one that will be largely, if not completely made by the attorney handling the case, but one that must be understood and approved by the client.

Continue reading "California Kaiser Malpractice Claims - Must/should you arbitrate? " »