San Francisco Injury Attorney Blog

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that a settlement was reached in a case involving a horrific 2009 car crash between the LAPD and a young woman. The woman, who died a few days later, was 25-year-old Devin Petelski. Petelski was driving home from her job as a counselor for troubled children. She suffered traumatic chest and head injuries. Following the accident her family filed a California wrongful death lawsuit against the city police, claiming that the patrol cop was driving at excessive speeds and failed to turn on the car's emergency lights and siren.

Despite the settlement, each side has provided drastically different accounts of the accident. The police officers involved were responding to the scene of a burglary in process. They claim that Petelski came flying out from a side street, causing them to slam into the driver's side of her BMW sedan. Both officers suffered minor injuries after swerving onto the sidewalk and hitting a tree. The first officer who arrived on the scene performed CPR on the young woman and stated he detected the smell of alcohol on Petelski's breath, a claim that was resoundingly dismissed when blood tests were done at the hospital shortly after the crash.

When a car or other type of accident causes a death in California, San Francisco accident lawyers know that many types of evidence can affect the outcome of a case. For example, eyewitness testimony can be extremely important in persuading a jury. In Petelski's case, witnesses provided varying accounts, with some saying the police were driving as fast as 80 mph. The officers claimed they were going approximately 50 mph.

Accident reconstruction can also serve as powerful evidence in a wrongful death case. According to the LAPD's Specialized Collision Investigation Detail, the officers were traveling at approximately 49 mph at the moment the brakes were applied. Members of the Detail measured the length and direction of the skid marks left by the tires, weighed the two cars, and determined where the cars ultimately ended up after the accident. However, when an independent expert completed tests on the police car's powertrain control module (a device similar to a black box on an airplane) they concluded that the police car slowed nearly to a stop and then rapidly accelerated less than 20 seconds before colliding with Petelski. After this evidence came to light, the LAPD and Petelski's parents reached a settlement.

As a San Francisco personal injury attorney, I have handled many accident cases involving public entities over the years. Public entities could include BART, Muni, or school buses. Such accidents have specific claims-filing requirements that are different from the general two-year filing requirements for standard personal injury cases, including wrongful death cases. Typically, if you become involved in an accident with a government entity, your claim must be filed with that entity within six months. Talking with a lawyer before that six-month period ends is crucial in cases where a public entity may be a defendant. Otherwise, your legal claims could be time-barred, which means that you may not be able to recover any form of financial compensation to cover medical expenses, lost wages, or other injuries.

Sadly, Petelski's death probably could have been prevented. When accidents happen, Bay Area accident lawyers know it can be reassuring to have a dedicated advocate on your side. The lawyers at Callaway & Wolf will give your case the professional, personalized attention you deserve.

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A mechanic working on a bus at a maintenance yard in the Bayview district suffered fatal injuries the morning of December 15, 2011, when the bus rolled over him. Fifty-eight year-old Walter Pietilla was working under the bus' hood when it apparently rolled off the support ramp and pinned him underneath, crushing him to death. The reason for the accident remains unknown. The bus and maintenance yard are owned by San Francisco-based Cal Experience LLC, which provides "party bus" services.

Cal-OSHA, California's workplace safety agency, is investigating the incident to try to determine what caused the bus to roll off of its support ramp. It will review the company's safety procedures and will interview employees and managers regarding how safety procedures are carried out and how employees are trained. Cal-OSHA has stated that Cal Experience has no prior history of workplace violations. If Cal-OSHA finds that the company is in violation of state workplace safety rules, the company could face fines ranging from the hundreds to thousands of dollars. The results of this investigation will help determine the legal rights and obligations of both Cal Experience and the worker's estate.

News reports do not indicate if Pietilla was an employee of Cal Experience, if he was employed by a company contracted to Cal Experience, or if he worked in some capacity as an independent contractor. Employees who suffer injuries on the job must ordinarily pursue damages through the workers' compensation system. This allows for employees to claim damages for injuries sustained while performing work duties, but it often limits damages and involves a great deal of administrative work.

Work sites may involve a variety of companies contracted to one another, and it is not always apparent which workers are employed by which company. A claim under the theory of third-party liability may be possible when a worker suffers an injury caused by someone who is not the worker's direct employer, such as a subcontractor, or when the worker is an independent contractor.

An owner or manager of property often has liability to people injured by dangerous conditions on their property, under the legal theory of premises liability. This could include liability for failure to repair a defect or damage on the premises, or failure to reasonably provide for the safety of people working on the premises. A worker injured on the job, in the absence of a workers' compensation claim or a claim under third-party liability, might have a claim under a premises liability theory against the person or business that has control over the premises themselves.

Continue reading "San Francisco Mechanic's Death Prompts Cal-OSHA Investigation" »

Wrongful Death verdicts and settlements in the San Francisco Bay area and throughout the state have gone up a lot in recent years. This is one of the very few areas where juries seem to be more generous today than they were ten years ago. A recent verdict against a radio station in Sacramento, California makes this point.

As reported in a CBS news story, one of the participants in station KDND's contest, entitled "Hold your Wee for a WII," Jennifer Strange, died from water intoxication after drinking massive amounts of water, but not urinating, in order to win an endurance contest. Water intoxication is a little-known condition, often affecting runners who go overboard in their efforts to drink enough water in a marathon.

In the KDND case, the victim was a mother of three children, and was trying to win a WII for her kids. The verdict is especially large for case where the victim was not someone who pulls down a large income. A big part of the money recovered in many wrongful death cases is for anticipated future earnings of the person who died. So, in casese that do not have punitive damages, it's not common to see such a large verdice for someone without high earnings.

Why are awards up so much for wrongful death cases? I'd like to think it's because juries are placing a higher value on the loss of human life, but I haven't seen anything to support that. I never understood how wrongful death verdicts could be so low in the past, and of course some still are. It's hard for a family to accept it when a jury finds that their loved one's death was caused by another person or a company, but then values their loss at, say, $200,000.

What I think is driving up verdicts in some cases is the sense of outrage at the conduct that caused the death. In the Sacramento California case, it's easy to see how a jury could be appalled at the radio station for conducting such this contest. Also, when the jury knows that a big corporation is behind a someone getting sued can often relieve any juror's worries about bankrupting a person or small business.

Continue reading "Remarkable $16.5 million Wrongful Death Verdict - Sacramento radio station contest" »