Recently, Mark Bates served as lead trial counsel a personal-injury case in Sacramento County Superior Court, arising out of a motor vehicle accident. Mr. Bates was assisted at trial by associate Lauren Cameron. Liability, as well as the nature and extent of plaintiff’s injuries reasonably related to the accident, were hotly contested.
Prior to trial, plaintiff demanded the policy limits of $100, 000, then during the trial reduced the demand to $40,000. After a judicially supervised settlement conference failed to resolve the case, prior to trial Mr. Bates responded with a statutory offer to compromise in the amount of $15, 000, which plaintiff allowed to expire. Mr. Bates made no offer to settle the case during the trial.
After a five-day jury trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiff, but awarded him only $14,902.79, representing the amount of his medical special damages and wage loss claim. The jury further reduced the verdict, finding plaintiff was 40% at fault for his own injuries, so the final amount of the verdict was $8,941.67. Because plaintiff failed to obtain an outcome more favorable than the defendant’s statutory offer to compromise, defendant was considered the “prevailing party” and was entitled not only to his costs, but also the fees for the defense expert witnesses testifying at trial. This further reduced the verdict by $19,981.
This premises liability/personal-injury action arises from a trip and fall. While walking his dog at night, Plaintiff followed his dog off the sidewalk into grassy area, where he encountered an unsecured hole and fell. Plaintiff claimed various injuries including serious knee and back injuries potentially requiring surgery, and a blow to the head with a loss of consciousness, with resulting claims of closed skull injuries and cognitive deficits.
Plaintiff sued the homeowners association, the property management company and one of the largest landscape maintenance companies in California. The firm represented the landscape maintenance company. At plaintiff’s deposition, one of the firm’s attorneys obtained admissions from plaintiff that he had no evidence as to how the hole was created or how long the hole existed before he encountered it.
Just prior to trial, Steve Mackey moved for summary judgment on behalf of the landscaping company, contending that there was no evidence that the landscaping company had actual or constructive notice of the allegedly dangerous condition and that as a matter of law, no legal duty arose to repair or warn plaintiff of the dangerous condition. In support of the motion, evidence was presented regarding the regular inspections of the property and the standing policy of the landscape company and its employees immediately report and correct any dangerous conditions encountered in the course of those inspections.
Plaintiff opposed the motion with two declarations. The first was a declaration from a purported landscape maintenance expert, who offered his opinion that the hole should have been discovered by the landscaping company in the exercise of reasonable care. The second was a declaration from one of the plaintiff’s neighbors, which stated she had seen the hole, but the declaration was so vague and unintelligible that it was difficult to determine whether the neighbor was claiming to have seen the hole just before or just after plaintiff’s accident.
The court’s tentative ruling was to deny the motion based upon the declarations submitted by plaintiff. At oral argument, Mr. Mackey again made various evidentiary objections and argued that the court should sustain the evidentiary objections which had previously been submitted, but had not yet been ruled upon.
The court took the matter under submission, and then issued an order reversing its tentative ruling and granting the landscape maintenance company’s summary judgment motion. The court found that the landscape maintenance company had sustained its burden as the moving party of producing evidence demonstrating it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and that because the evidentiary objections were well taken and were sustained, plaintiff had presented no admissible evidence creating a triable issue of material fact.
A judgment in favor of the landscape maintenance company has been forwarded to the court for signature. The then-pending trial date was subsequently continued and the remaining defendants have now moved for summary judgment, based on the same evidence and arguments presented by the landscape maintenance company.
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This wrongful death/personal-injury action arose out of a motor vehicle accident that occurred on northbound Interstate 5 near Los Banos, in Merced County, California. At that time and place, a woman was driving a vehicle which she had rented from a car-rental company. The driver had six passengers with her in the vehicle, one of whom was her teenage daughter.
For reasons unknown, a tractor-trailer traveling in the same direction entered the rental car ’s lane of travel as the rental car was passing the big rig, causing the driver of the rental car to swerve and lose control. The rental car went off the left side of the roadway and rolled over multiple times. At the time of the accident, the driver’s teenage daughter was riding in the back seat, and in order to more comfortably sleep, had placed the shoulder strap of her seat belt behind her, leaving the lap belt in its proper placement. When the rental car rolled over, this teenage girl was partially ejected, and was mortally injured. She was later pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. The other six occupants of the rental vehicle were transported to nearby hospitals, but because they were properly wearing their passenger restraint devices, they did not suffer life-threatening injuries.
Plaintiffs sued the driver of the big rig, the trucking company, and the driver of the rental car. The truck driver/trucking company then cross-complained against the vehicle manufacturer and against the rental car company, which was represented by this Firm. The legal theory of liability was that the car-rental company provided no warning to Plaintiffs regarding a life-threatening danger associated with the vehicle’s side curtain airbags. Specifically, the truck driver/trucking company alleged that the vehicle was unreasonably dangerous because of a failure to warn about the dangers associated with failing to properly use the passenger restraint system in the vehicle as manufactured by vehicle’s manufacture and as supplied by the car-rental company. In short, the theory of liability was the same against both the manufacturer and the rental car company has the supplier/ renter of the vehicle.
The vehicle manufacturer moved for summary judgment, arguing that there was no evidence in a defective condition of the vehicle and therefore no failure to warn. The San Joaquin County Superior Court granted that motion.
On behalf of the rental car company, Steve Mackey then moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that since the theory of liability was identical as against both the manufacturer and the supplier of the vehicle. Mr. Mackey argued that since the manufacturer had prevailed on summary judgment by demonstrating that there was no evidence of any defect in the vehicle, that the rental car company also was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The trucking company vigorously opposed the motion, and after a lengthy hearing, the Court took the motion under submission. Several months later, the judge ruled in favor of the rental car company and granted the motion. A judgment in favor of the rental car company has now been forwarded to the court for signature.
Gray v. Hanford
Third District Court of Appeal
Case No. C052180
A homeowner represented by the Firm was sued under a premises liability theory for the wrongful death of an equipment operator who was crushed by a large concrete slab which was being unloaded from a flatbed trailer which had been parked the day before on the homeowner's property. On behalf of the homeowner, the Firm moved for summary judgment, contending that the homeowner was not negligent. The firm introduced undisputed evidence that the homeowner had not loaded or secured the load and had not transported the trailer, but had only given general directions as to where the trailer should be parked. Plaintiffs and one of the other defendants (whose employees had loaded the trailer) opposed the summary judgment motion.
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