Oakland Personal Injury Attorney Blog
A Sacramento man, who was driving through Lake County on his way home, suffered serious injuries after a local sheriff’s deputy lost control of his police vehicle and crashed head-on into the man. The man and the county recently ended their case, with the jury ruling for the plaintiff and awarding more than $2 million in damages. If you’ve been injured in an auto accident, you need to make sure that you have a skilled California car accident lawyer on your side to ensure that you get everything you should, whether through a judgment or a settlement.
Marc, from Sacramento, was driving his Honda Accord eastbound on Highway 20 on a rainy September morning in Lake County. While traveling across Highway 20 as he headed home from a wedding, Marc found himself facing a situation no driver wants to see: a westbound vehicle had spun out of control on the wet road, had crossed the double-yellow line, and was headed directly for him. The two vehicles collided in a head-on crash, lakeconews.com reported.
Marc suffered serious injuries in the accident. He had a shattered left wrist and shattered ankle joint, and he experienced pain in his hip and chest. Since the driver who hit Marc was an on-duty sheriff’s deputy, the injured man sued Lake County. The case went to trial. At trial, there are generally two major hurdles: liability and damages. Clearly, each of these hurdles involves obtaining and submitting sufficient evidence to support your contentions and refute those of the other side.
On the issue of liability, the county argued that the wet road was the real cause of the accident, and no one was to blame. To overcome that argument, Marc obtained and used the footage from the police cruiser’s dashcam and “black box” data recorder. That camera indicated that the deputy only had a small space to pass a semi that had pulled over, and the data recorder indicated that the deputy “floored it.” Marc had a Stanford-educated doctor in mechanical engineering who served as an expert witness and testified that it was the deputy’s decision to fully depress the gas pedal that caused the vehicle to spin out of control, according to the lakeconews.com report.
Once you’ve established the other side’s liability, you also need detailed evidence to back up your claims about the extensive harm you’ve suffered. In this case, Marc had multiple doctors who testified about his damages, including an orthopedic surgeon who had previously served as the chief of staff for surgery at a hospital in Sonoma and a radiologist who served as the team radiologist for the Oakland Athletics. He had proof that his badly shattered wrist was now deformed and that his shattered ankle joint had become arthritic and would require fusion surgery in the future.
All of this evidence swayed the jury, and they returned a judgment awarding Marc a total of $2.04 million in damages.
If you’ve been hurt in an auto accident, don’t delay. Reach out to the Oakland car accident attorneys at the Law Offices of Stephen M. Fuerch. Our team has been working diligently to represent the interests of injured people and help them seek the recovery they deserve. To learn more about how we can help you, contact us through our website or call our office at (925) 463-2575 to schedule your confidential initial consultation today.
More Blog Posts:
A Hollywood Pedestrian Receives a $15 Million Settlement from the City Due to Dangerous Intersection, Oakland Personal Injury Attorney Blog, Oct. 25, 2017
California Vehicle Accident Victim’s Unique Medical Makeup Triggers $2.8M Jury Verdict Award, Oakland Personal Injury Attorney Blog, March 15, 2017