Drunk Driving Accidents
Persons who drive a vehicle when their ability is impaired by alcohol or drugs must be held fully accountable for injuries to others. When we accept a case involving drunk driving, we pursue the case not only against the driver’s insurance company, but also against the driver’s and owner’s assets when reasonably possible in order to obtain full compensation for our injured client and to punish the offending driver which we believe will help prevent future drunk driving accidents. In many cases, victims and families of victims can claim punitive damages for injuries and deaths caused by a drunk driver.
In 1980 Candice Lightner co-founded Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) after a drunk driver killed her 13-year-old daughter. The organization has been successfully working to lower the blood-alcohol limits for conviction of drinking drivers. The statistics involving drunk drivers are staggering. There were almost 13,000 deaths nationwide in 2007 involving alcohol-impaired driving. There were 1,155 fatalities in California.
Some of our successes include:
Parents liable for drunk driving adult son – $1,183,000 jury verdict
Our law firm has been instrumental in expanding liability to include persons who supplied alcohol or drugs to the driver. In 1983 we obtained the first reported jury verdict in the United States that held the parents responsible for the actions of their adult child by providing alcohol to their adult son who then caused an accident. The jury found the parents guilty of negligent entrustment because they helped their adult son finance a loan on his “hopped-up” red Dodge Charger when they knew he had a bad driving record including 12 traffic citations, four previous accidents and a prior drunk driving charge. The parents then gave wine to their adult son who had a blood alcohol level of .12 before he drove recklessly at 80 mph on a residential street in Castro Valley, California and broadsided our client’s Volkswagen, killing the driver and severely injuring the passenger. We obtained a jury verdict in excess of one million dollars in Hayward, California, a very large verdict at that time. The jury also awarded punitive damages against the defendant driver. Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) referred to this landmark case to educate the public about the dangers of providing alcohol to someone who will be operating a vehicle.
Drunk driver pays for accident – $750,000
A 58 year old woman changed lanes on a freeway and drove onto the paved shoulder of Highway 680 in Pleasanton after drinking wine at home. Two teachers on their way home from school had made an emergency stop on the shoulder, believing they had a problem with one of the tires on their car. Our client, a passenger, was in the process of getting back into the parked car when she was struck by the woman driving on the shoulder of the freeway. She suffered multiple fractures and a traumatic brain injury. She has been able to continue to teach, but has certain cognitive deficits.
The defendant driver carried insurance of only $500,000. We required the driver and her husband to pay out of their own pockets an additional $250,000 to settle the case. We defeated a Kaiser Medical reimbursement claim of $333,000 which increased our client’s recovery.
