Los Angeles Injury Lawyer Blog

A tractor trailer big rig truck caused a fatal auto accident on a San Bernardino Riverside freeway when it struck a car carrying a mother and child. Their car erupted in flames, and both were burned to death in this tragedy. We sued both the tractor and trailer for negligence and wrongful death as a result the accident, and we settled the case for the policy limits of $1,500,000. While no amount of money is just compensation for the wrongful death of a loved one in a car accident, personal injury lawyers can help surviving family members receive some compensation for their loss that can hopefully help them put the pieces of their lives back together. Our clients were the surviving husband and his two remaining children who live in Fontana, California.

The husband and surviving children would have a wrongful death claim against anyone who was found to be negligent who contributed to the deaths of their mother and sibling. We knew that this would be a difficult wrongful death case because their car was totally destroyed in the fire, which made it impossible to reconstruct the auto accident to determine what caused their car to go out of control in the first place. Our client’s wife got on the 210 freeway in San Bernardino with one of her children to drive five miles to a store just a few off ramps away. For some unknown reason, her car went out of control, crossed the freeway from the number four lane to the center, struck the center divider, came all the way back across the freeway and was struck broadside on the passenger side by a tractor trailer in the number four lane. The car then erupted in flames from the impact, and they were killed in the fire. The husband was a California Highway Patrol officer who was called to the fiery scene and arrived there with his other children. Fortunately they were kept away from the wreckage which was still on fire.

Many times we have cases where the original negligence or accident did not cause the ultimate death or damages. In this case, clearly, if the tractor trailer had not impacted the car at a high rate of speed, the car would have continued across the freeway, not caught on fire, and ended up on the side of the freeway. We sued the tractor trailer for negligence in not seeing the car initially lose control as it started sliding from the number four lane to the center divider and to slow up or to pull over when the car started to slide back across the freeway. Our accident reconstruction expert determined that the tractor trailer had seven seconds to see the car and to react, which was enough time to have taken evasive action. The expert for the tractor trailer indicated they would have had four seconds from the time the car hit the center divider, which would still have been enough time to substantially slow or turn to the shoulder. In these type of cases, we always hire a number of experts who help reconstruct the accident. Many times we spend over $100,000 for experts to help explain what happened, why and how it could have been avoided.

The tractor only had a policy of $750,000. Many accident attorneys don't realize in tractor trailer cases that the trailer also may have their own policy that covers the claim, and in some cases even the owner of the load can be liable. Although $1,500,000 is not enough to compensate the family for the negligence of the tractor trailer and the wrongful death of the wife, mother and child, the defendant driver/owner did not have any other assets. The two surviving children will have their portion of the settlement put in a structured settlement to pay for their college when they get older, and it will accumulate sufficient funds for them to buy a house or start their own business when they get older.