San Diego Drunk Driving Accident Lawyer

Whether you’re traveling as a commuter, a tourist, or simply communing with nature, you’ll enjoy exploring California’s 50,000 miles of highways. You will encounter stunning views, exciting cities, and beautiful landscapes at every turn. As with any highway system, you’ll also sometimes share the road with careless or distracted drivers. The stakes are highest at night. because that’s when most drunk driving accidents occur.

While some drunk drivers cause simple fender benders, others initiate full-blown catastrophes. When a person decides to drink and drive, they endanger others with their diminished judgment. Their actions often cause serious damage and catastrophic injuries. If you were seriously injured by a drunk driver, or a family member was seriously injured or killed, you understand the horrific price other people pay for a drunk driver’s mistakes.

Drunk Drivers Must Pay for Their Actions

At Gomez Trial Attorneys, our car accident attorneys understand that a single drunk driving event can ruin many lives. That’s why we’ve done whatever was necessary to make drunk drivers pay. We have investigated our client’s cases and evaluated the evidence. We have used our experience and our resources to evaluate our clients’ needs and prepare our cases to win. Our firm commits to handling cases for injured clients only. We have worked with many families as they fought to recover their pre-accident lives. Our clients’ willingness to challenge their circumstances has always inspired us to produce the best outcomes on their behalf. We’ve worked hard to recover the damages they needed to manage life with continuing disabilities.

Our Law Firm’s Results

At Gomez Trial Attorneys, we’ve always believed that our clients deserve our staunchest effort. Our drunk driving accident attorneys have earned our clients’ trust by working hard to produce the best results possible. We have prepared our cases through comprehensive investigation, attention to detail, and thorough evidence evaluation.

When the circumstances were appropriate, our lawyers have participated in aggressive negotiation with adverse parties and their insurers. We’ve resolved cases through mediation and similar resolution forums. While we’ve considered a range of informal settlement options, we always maintained a trial-ready stance. We understand that litigation is sometimes the only way to win the compensation our clients need to manage their lives.

We invite you to review our case results. While these are only past results and can’t guarantee a particular outcome in each case, we believe they are the best measure of our firm’s enthusiasm for justice and our dedication to producing the best outcomes for our clients.

Drinking and Driving in California

When a California driver operates a vehicle with a Blood Alcohol Concentration (“BAC”) of 0.08 percent grams per deciliter, he’s committing a criminal offense. For a commercial vehicle operator, the illegal BAC level is 0.04 percent. This is also the illegal BAC for a person driving for hire with a passenger in the car. The lower BAC limits apply to taxi drivers, truckers, and other paid transportation services.

Despite California’s efforts to curb drinking and driving, it’s a constant law enforcement challenge throughout the state. In 2016, the San Diego Police Department arrested 1,901 drinkers for driving with BACs at or above the legal limit. Officers in Santa Ana made 659 DUI arrests. In Los Angeles, arrests for DUI violations totaled 6,164.

The Numbers Tell the Story

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports the following Alcohol-Impaired Driving statistics for 2017. That’s the most recent year for completely compiled data.

• Nationally, alcohol-impaired drivers were a factor in 10,874 fatal crashes. (Averaging one death every 48 minutes)
• 1,492 of the drunken drivers’ fatally injured passengers also had BACs at 0.08 percent or greater.
• In California, drunk drivers were involved in 1,120 deaths. (Over 10 percent of national fatality count)
• California has the second highest ranked DUI-related traffic fatality rate in the country. (Second only to Texas)
• 31 percent of the traffic fatalities in California involved a driver under the influence of alcohol.
• The fatality count lists only those accidents where drivers tested legally impaired based on a BAC of 0.08 percent or greater.
• 32 percent of fatal accidents occurred at night. 9 percent occurred during the day.

The act of drinking and driving is a disturbing dilemma. As alcohol enters a drinker’s bloodstream, it increases their ability to harm others while simultaneously reducing the drinker’s awareness of the potential danger. By the time a drinker chooses to drive, alcohol has already reduced the capacity to judge the gravity of that decision. Judgment is one of the first skills to suffer—even at low impairment levels.

Source: www.ots.ca.gov

Alcohol-Impairment Begins at Lower BACs

Traffic statistics focus on 0.08 percent BACs. That’s the legal intoxication limit for private passenger vehicle drivers in all states except one. In 2018, Utah became the first state to lower its legal intoxication BAC to 0.05 percent. The National Transportation Safety Board sees a national reduction in legal BACs as a necessary step in eliminating drunk driving accidents. As the NTSB investigates transportation accidents across the country, they recognize alcohol-impairment as a serious safety issue. They also recommend high-visibility law enforcement, ignition interlock devices, and tougher drinking and driving laws.

NHTSA statistics show that lower BACs are nearly as dangerous as the legal limit. The 10,874 alcohol-related vehicle accident deaths they documented in 2017 involved drivers with a 0.08 percent BAC or greater. An additional 1,837 fatal crashes involved drivers who tested at BACs of 0.01 percent to 0.07 percent.

NHTSA research shows how a drinker’s physical and cognitive functions begin declining when the blood reaches a BAC of 0.02 percent grams per deciliter. Drinkers display a loss of judgment. Alcohol also affects visual functioning. At 0.05 percent, a drinker loses small muscle control. Their judgment becomes impaired and they suffer from reduced coordination and other adverse effects.

Drunk Drivers Cause Catastrophic Injuries

While under the influence of alcohol, drivers behave in unpredictable ways that increase their chances of causing accidents and serious injuries. Drunk drivers speed, lose control, and become distracted. As alcohol also diminishes physical capabilities and reaction times, it reduces a driver’s ability to initiate preventative measures. This often makes a crash inevitable. Speeding, failure to take evasive moves, and distraction combine to make drunken crashes severe enough to cause extensive damage and catastrophic injuries.

Victims who survive serious auto crashes often live with traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord trauma, and other catastrophic injuries. About 51 percent of the 16,495 TBI patients tracked by the Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems database sustained injuries in auto accidents. The National Spinal Cord Statistical Center lists “vehicular accidents” a 31.3 percent factor in the 32,727 SCI patients they track.

Drunken crashes cause life-disrupting injuries that sometimes require lifelong treatment. Injured victims endure pain, physical impairments, and family changes from a range of trauma-induced injuries.

• Paralysis due to spinal cord trauma
• Traumatic brain injury
• Disc and spine injuries
• Nerve damage
• Severe Burns
• Multiple fractures and crushed bones
• Traumatic amputations
• Internal organ damage
• Fatal injuries

Who Is Responsible for Drunk Driving Accidents?

A driver who chooses to drink and drive is responsible for the damages he causes. Other persons or entities often share liability with the driver.

• Private passenger vehicle: Drivers are responsible for the damages they cause due to their negligent acts. If the driver is operating a vehicle he doesn’t own, the owner is also responsible. An owner shares liability under California’s Financial Responsibility Laws §1600-16078. An owner is also liable for negligent entrustment. This occurs when the owner knew or should have known that the driver had a history of drinking and driving, yet they allowed him to drive the car anyway.
• Commercial vehicle: A trucker, taxi driver, or other commercial vehicle operator is responsible for drunk-driving related negligent acts. If they are working for a transportation company, the company shares liability for the driver’s actions. An employer often has other liability issues when an employee drives while under the influence. If the employer knew or should have known of a driver’s DUI-driving history and hired him anyway, they share liability for placing him on the road.
• Bars or social hosts: Bar owners and social hosts have limited liability when they serve intoxicated persons, but only when the drinker is under age 21. California dram shop laws and guidelines acknowledge that drunk driving is a consumption issue for which the driver is responsible.

What Compensation Do Injured Victims Recover?

Injured victims’ settlements include Economic Damages, General Damages, and occasionally, Punitive or Exemplary Damages.

Economic Damages

Economic damages pay for incurred out-of-pocket costs. When the injured person has ongoing treatment and continuing impairments, an economic expert projects future medical costs and income losses for settlement purposes. Economic damages include:

• Medical bills
• Physician treatment costs
• Lost income
• Consideration for diminished earning capacity
• Mobility structures and prosthetic devices
• Physical and psychological therapy
• Medical transportation expenses
• Replacement services
• Plastic surgery and scar revision
• Funeral and burial expenses

General Damages

General damages are largely based on an injured person’s perceptions. They consider emotional, social, psychological, and lifestyle issues. General damages often include:

• Pain and suffering
• Anguish and emotional distress
• Diminished family and spousal relationships
• Loss of bodily functions
• Permanent scars and disfigurement
• Permanent limitations and impairments
• Lifestyle changes

California juries sometimes award punitive or exemplary damages to punish a negligent party. The plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that a defendant acted out of “…oppression, fraud, or malice….”

Wrongful Death Damages

When a drunk driver causes fatal injuries, the family has a right to collect damages through a wrongful death action. Recoverable damages consider the deceased victim’s life expectancy. Judgments include economic damages for financial support, gifts, and services the deceased would have contributed. Non-economic damages cover a spouse’s or domestic partner’s loss of consortium, as well as financial and emotional support, and other services.

How Do Responsible Parties Defend Their Actions?

Drunk drivers have few defenses when they cause an accident, but their insurance carriers usually control settlement negotiations. Often, insurance companies negotiate with the idea of saving money on reserves, or preserving some of their client’s policy limits. This often promotes lowball settlement tactics.

Policy limits are rarely a consideration when an accident involves a commercial vehicle. Defendants and their insurance companies still negotiate with the idea of minimizing claim payouts. A commercial transportation company sometimes influences negotiation when they have a commercial auto policy with a large retention limit. Insurers usually conduct settlement negotiations, but their settlement decisions are sometimes driven by client opinion. When transportation companies self-insure their liability claims, it shifts the defense dynamic, as every dollar paid comes out of the company’s corporate funds.

Despite liability issues, defendants sometimes push cases to the courthouse steps. Insurance companies have near-unlimited defense funds. They understand that some plaintiffs’ law firms don’t have the experience or the resources for discovery and trial. This tactic sometimes forces a plaintiff to settle for a low dollar figure because the plaintiff can’t afford to try the case.

Defendants sometimes try injury cases, hoping a judge or jury will render a lower verdict than the plaintiff’s attorney demands. They often use a catch-all defense strategy, and such cases require plantiff’s attorneys who know the most common defense tactics and how to outflank them.

At Gomez Trial Attorneys, our drunk driving accident attorneys develop our own strategies long before we enter the courthouse. We’ve had the experience and the firm resources to try any case to conclusion. From day one, our attorneys prepare our clients’ cases to win.

Gomez Drunk Driving Accident Injury Attorneys

If you were seriously injured or your loved one died in an accident with a drunk driver, our firm wants to help. Gomez Trial Attorneys has recovered more than $500 million in damages for our injured clients. Let us determine if we can help you. Call us at (619) 237–3490 to schedule a consultation or complete our contact form at Gomez Trial Attorneys online.