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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.
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.
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.
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 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports the following Alcohol-Impaired Driving statistics for 2017. That’s the most recent year for completely compiled data.
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
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.
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.
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.
Injured victims’ settlements include Economic Damages, General Damages, and occasionally, Punitive or Exemplary 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:
General damages are largely based on an injured person’s perceptions. They consider emotional, social, psychological, and lifestyle issues. General damages often include:
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….”
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.
Each year in San Diego, more than 5,000 people are killed in traffic accidents. More than 600 of those fatal accidents involve a drunk driver. Nationally, around 30 people are killed every day in drunk driving accidents and many more are injured.
If a drunk driving accident injured you in San Diego, you can obtain compensation for your injuries through a lawsuit. Here are the answers to some of the questions our San Diego drunk driving accident clients ask most often about that process.
Remain calm. Alcohol not only impairs the skills an individual needs to drive but can also impair an individual’s judgment in other situations. In California, after an accident, the drivers involved are required to exchange information with each other, including names and contact information, driver’s license numbers, license plate numbers, and insurance information. If the drunk driver seems able and willing to provide this information, go ahead and collect it. However, while this information is important, so is your safety.
If the individual is belligerent and refusing to offer the information to you, simply wait for the police to arrive and obtain that information for you. If you feel as though the individual is a threat to your safety, do not engage the individual. Instead, wait in your vehicle with the doors locked until the police arrive. If you must leave the scene due to safety concerns, be sure to inform the 911 operator when you call to report the accident as to your whereabouts and why you left the scene.
In California, both the child and the parent can be found liable for an accident that occurs in this manner. When a California minor obtains his or her driver’s license, his or her parents are required to sign a form consenting to the child driving and accepting liability for any accidents the child is in while driving. This is known as parental liability and it is a form of vicarious liability, which is a legal doctrine in which individuals can be indirectly liable for an injury even if they weren’t the ones who caused it.
In addition to a civil drunk driving accident claim, the parents would likely face criminal penalties for furnishing alcohol to a minor.
You still need to file a claim to pursue compensation for your injuries. A San Diego drunk driving accident lawsuit and a criminal investigation into driving under the influence are two entirely different proceedings. A criminal investigation is a process undertaken by the government that can result in an arrest, and—upon conviction—causes the drunk driver to face financial consequences, requirements to complete alcohol education or treatment, and even incarceration.
A San Diego drunk driving accident lawsuit is a civil claim instigated by the injured individual to prove who was liable for the injury and obtain compensation from that individual or entity’s insurer. There is no risk of incarceration in a civil proceeding and the government is usually not involved at all unless they’re one of the defendants.
Both of these proceedings can occur simultaneously and without impact to the other.
Yes. Obviously, those who have suffered serious injuries that render them unable to exchange information from the other driver are exempt from the requirement. Because you were injured, the police likely responded to your accident and made a report that would include that information. You can obtain that information for your own records or for your attorney by contacting the police agency that investigated the accident and asking what you need to do to obtain that report. If we take your case, we can get this information for you.
You can file a third-party claim with the drunk driver’s insurer or a legal claim with the court against the at-fault party and his or her insurer. Often, individuals initially file a third party claim and then seek assistance from an attorney in filing a San Diego drunk driving accident lawsuit after they’re either offered a settlement that is too low to adequately cover the expenses incurred by the accident or they do not see any meaningful progress on settling.
A successful outcome to your case requires proving:
In addition to proving liability, you will also be required to show the impacts of your injury and the expenses you have incurred because of it.
California allows the recovery of both economic and non-economic damages after an accident. The word “damage” in a civil court claim refers to a payment to compensate for harm. Defendants pay economic damages for the expenses you incurred because of your injury.
Examples of economic damages are:
Non-economic damages are a payment made in compensation for the ways your injury has impacted your quality of life.
Some common impacts that are included in non-economic damage claims in San Diego drunk driving accident cases are:
To know how much money constitutes fair compensation in your case, your experienced accident attorney will evaluate your case.
Your lawyer will consider:
It should be noted that, in some cases, courts may award punitive damages. Punitive damages aren’t related to the expenses or impacts of your injury, but instead punish a defendant financially for particularly egregious behavior. To obtain punitive damages in a San Diego drunk driving case, you must prove that the defendant caused the accident due to malice, fraud, or oppression. Fraud and oppression generally do not apply to a drunk driving case. However, depending on the circumstances of your accident, malice might have some bearing on your ability to recover punitive damages.
The statute defines malice as “conduct which is intended by the defendant to cause injury to the plaintiff or despicable conduct which is carried on by the defendant with a willful and conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others.”
Around 15 percent of the drivers in California do not maintain the amount of auto liability insurance that is required by law. Uninsured drivers cause extreme hardship for accident victims as insurance policies pay most traffic accident injury settlements and awards. You may file a lawsuit against an uninsured person and even obtain a judgment in your favor. However, most people cannot afford to pay the expenses from accident injuries out-of-pocket, so collecting that judgment may prove difficult.
Some injury victims who find that the defendant in their case had no insurance may obtain compensation through their own uninsured/ underinsured motorist policy, their personal health insurance policies, or other policies they have available. Others find another source of liability that possesses an insurance policy that can be used.
One of the important services your drunk driving accident attorney will provide for you is a determination of all liable parties and insurance resources that can be accessed to compensate you. Speak with an attorney to obtain guidance on matters such as who can be liable for your accident and your legal options based on the unique facts of your case.
No. The legal process of obtaining compensation after an accident is extraordinarily complicated for many people who do not have specialized training in this area of the law. Having an experienced accident attorney on your side provides you with an understanding of that process, the court requirements, and the types of evidence necessary to make your claim. You will have the benefit of your attorney’s negotiation skills, as well as his or her help in collecting your settlement or award.
While the services of an attorney are crucial in a San Diego drunk driving accident case, people often struggle with the notion of how to pay the attorney while simultaneously dealing with the unexpected expenses and emotions that go along with serious injuries. Fortunately, our San Diego drunk driving accident lawyers at Gomez Trial Attorneys provide two special services aimed at ensuring that anyone who needs the services of a lawyer may obtain them, regardless of the individual’s financial status.
Those services include:
Let us help you make sense of the process of obtaining compensation after your San Diego drunk driving accident. For your free case evaluation, contact us online or call us at any time that’s convenient to you.
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.
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.
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