While the circumstances of this incident are rare, bicycle accidents are far too common in San Francisco and throughout California. At least half a dozen major bike accident lawsuits are either currently in the works, or have been settled for major awards in the past few years. We’ve rounded up five more of these major bike accident lawsuits. Take a look, and let us know in the comments section if you know of other California bike accident lawsuits that we should add.

Road Rage

Most recently, a 62-year old Los Angeles cyclist was struck and killed by an angry driver. The especially tragic aspect of this accident is that the cyclist had no part in the disagreement between two drivers, a 37-year old man operating a Chevrolet Avalanche, and a 23-year old woman driving a Kia compact vehicle. The Chevrolet owner was immediately detained by police and was later released “with a possibility of filing later on,” according to the LAPD. Police commented that one of the drivers could face criminal charges, and would likely be cited in a wrongful death lawsuit.

Truck Hazard

43-year old cyclist Michael Nine was killed in Newport Beach while riding with a group of 25 cyclists on the morning of July 15, 2010. The cyclist at the head of the pack reached the top of Spyglass Hill Road and saw the truck right in front, yelling “Truck! Truck! Truck!” said the police report. Most cyclists were able to veer off the road, but Nine was hit and later died from injuries sustained in the accident. In June, Nine’s family filed a wrongful death accident against the driver of the truck, the City of Newport Beach, and two neighborhood associations. The lawsuit claims that the city did not implement appropriate safety signs, the neighborhood associations did not sufficiently prevent possible accidents, and the truck driver was driving recklessly.

Record Muni Settlement

In June, San Francisco’s mass transit agency agreed to a record bike accident wrongful death settlement of $5.36 million to the family of David Wheeler. In November of 2008, Wheeler was hit by a 16-X Noriega bus while crossing the Lower Great Highway at Ocean Beach. Documents filed in San Francisco Superior Court indicated that the bus driver neglected to obey the stop sign before turning left onto the highway, did not use his left-turn blinker, and cut the turn too close, all factors that contributed to the fatal bike accident. This settlement was nearly twice as high as the infamous 2009 West Portal Station accident that injured nearly 50 passengers and led to $2.4 million in settlements.

Big-Rig Confusion

Details are more murky in the case of a Portola Valley bike accident that led to the death of 47-year old cyclist Lauren Ward. Ward’s family has filed a wrongful death claim against trucker Gabriel Manzur and the company he works for, Randazzo Enterprizes, which owned the truck that hit Ward. They have also filed a claim against San Mateo County, alleging that dangerous road conditions contributed to the deadly crash. The California Highway Patrol claims that Ward “unsafely turned” while turning left onto Alpine Road near I-280. But the CHP also acknowledges that there were no eyewitnesses, and it remains unclear whether or not she actually made an unsafe turn.

Drunk Driving Kills

After German exchange student Nils Yannick Linke was struck and killed on San Francisco’s Masonic Avenue by a drunk driver last year, he has become something of an icon for the movement to improve streets for San Francisco cyclists. In January, his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Joshua Calder, the drunk driver charged with hitting Linke, Calder’s girlfriend, and his grandmother, who owned the vehicle that caused the crash. Linke’s family is seeking a jury trial for general and punitive damages following the death of the 22-year old musician and cyclist.

Fatal bike accidents are always tragic for those who have lost friends and family. But the lawsuits above show that they can also be crippling to the budget of an individual, a transit agency, or even a city. So in order to improve infrastructure, avoid massive legal fees, and most importantly, save lives, California cities should get serious about cutting down on serious bike accidents. In the mean time, remember to be careful while riding your bicycle in cities and rural areas throughout California.

Photo credit: mikebaird

Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee begins with the notorious Liebeck v. McDonald’s, in which 78 year-old Stella Liebeck won a $2.7 million verdict from the fast food mega chain after it sold her scorching hot coffee which caused second and third degree burns over much of her body. The lawsuit became the instant poster child for frivolous lawsuits and a centerpiece in the case for tort reform here in America. It was also the basis for the Seinfeld hot coffee lawsuit episode. Hot Coffee has earned glowing reviews in major national publications like the New York Times and the Washington Post, but we’re going to focus on what law blogs have said about the Hot Coffee.

The documentary emphasizes that the attorneys defending McDonald’s capitalized on the fact that the American public is dumb, writes Staci Zaretsky for legal tabloid Above the Law. The defense spun the story that Liebeck was trying to bilk McDonalds out of money she didn’t deserve, but Zaretsky describes the images of Liebeck’s injury as “one of the grossest, most disgusting things I’ve ever seen.” The film uses this as a launching pad to document the “evils” that the tort reform movement has perpetrated against countless other Americans. “I legitimately felt bad for these people,” writes Zaretsky, “Hot Coffee made me want to go out and protest and do community service.”

While Hot Coffee is clearly a powerful legal documentary, it’s not free from criticism, writes Nick Farr for the Abnormal Use blog. After all, the film’s director Susan Saladoff is a trial lawyer herself, and has a clear interest in exposing the “evils” of the tort reform movement. “The larger the verdict for the plaintiff, the larger the payday for the trial lawyer,” writes Farr. “It is noble to stand up for those who may have been wronged, but don’t present yourself as a disinterested party and cloak yourself in the guise of pure altruism when doing it.”

Capturing the Friedmans

Capturing the Friedmans essentially tells the story of a normal American family gone horribly wrong, and the legal battle that followed. The family became the center of a massive media firestorm after police began investigating Arnold Friedman for charges of child molestation after discovering a large collection of child pornography at his home in Great Neck, New York. After initially denying the charges, Arnold Friedman pleaded guilty to sodomy and sexual abuse. He died in prison in 2005, leaving a $250,000 life insurance policy to his son Jesse, who left prison in 2001 after serving 13 years for the same crimes as his father. Capturing the Friedmans won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Despite Friedman’s guilty plea, the film unearths mounting evidence that he may have been wrongly convicted, which led veteran film reviewer Roger Ebert to write that it offered “an instructive lesson about the elusiveness of facts” in the American legal system. But despite this evidence, director Andrew Jarecki has caught criticism for keeping his own view of the Friedman debacle out of the film. In fact, Friedman’s case was very similar to multiple 1980s sex abuse convictions that were later proven to be false. “These spectacular allegations have since been exposed as utterly false,” write lawyers Harvey Silvergate and Carl Takei for Slate Magazine. “The convictions lacked physical evidence and relied on children’s testimony obtained by discredited investigative techniques.”

Jarecki seems to have gotten the message, and included additional evidence questioning the prosecution of Arnold and Jesse Friedman with the DVD release of the film.

Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil provides a portrait of Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady, who was convicted of molesting and raping more than two dozen children in Northern California in the 1980s and 1990s. O’Grady served seven years in prison for his crimes, but this 2006 award winning documentary film focuses on the Catholic Church’s policy of lying for priests in order to maintain a semblance of propriety. The film interviews victims of O’Grady’s abuse, and even the priest himself, who readily admits to being aroused by children and even declares callously “let bygones be bygones” of his crimes.

The trailer shows a prominent church Cardinal responding to the question “he had sexual urges toward a nine year old, is that cause to remove him from ministry” with a simple “no.” The film also takes issue with the role of gender when it comes to the acceptability of child abuse in the church, suggesting that priests are less likely to condemn molestation when it happens to girls, rather than boys. The trailer poignantly concludes with an attorney asking a Church big wig “do you think if a child were raped, that would be something that you would forget?” The priest’s attorney objects to the seemingly obvious question and instructs the witness not to answer.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father

This 2008 documentary, Dear Zachary, focuses on the ramifications of a legal system that fails to provide justice. After the charismatic future doctor Andrew Bagby was murdered, it wasn’t long before his former girlfriend was charged for the crime. It was enough time, however, for her to flee to Canada, leaving American courts unable to hold her accountable. The suspected murderer was pregnant with Bagby’s baby, which forced his parents to continue a civil relationship with the mother in order to stay connected to their only grandchild. Distraught, Bagby’s best friend – a filmmaker – decided to interview anyone who ever knew the victim, as a letter to the son he would never meet, Zachary.

The film was a critical success in the United States, and attracted best documentary nominations from the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Society of Professional Journalists, among others. The New York Times praised Dear Zachary as “at once a personal documentary about the murder of [the director’s] best friend and a polemical rant against the Canadian justice system for coddling a dangerous sociopath.” The film also targets the political nature of custody battles, which left Bagby’s parents unable to take responsible for their grandson, despite mounting evidence that his mother was dangerous and had possibly murdered the father.

PG&E blamed third parties and even the blast victims themselves for contributing to last September’s pipeline explosion, which destroyed 38 homes, killed 8, and injured many more. The gas and electric company wrote in court filings that these victims “may have been legally responsible under a doctrine of comparative negligence (or) contributory negligence,” but did not indicate specific ways they may have been negligent. San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson called their assertions “completely surprising…It’s unfortunate that they have thrown everything plus the kitchen sink in this, to cover their legal strategy.”

PG&E claims aside, let’s look at the evidence that has surfaced over the past 9 months thanks to the work of Bay Area reporters and safety advocates.

• In 2004, the national agency that regulates gas pipelines reported that pipeline degradation can occur with little obvious damage and required all major gas companies to conduct “risk-based assessments.” After the accident, the Wall Street Journal reported that “none of the special measures was taken in the case of the San Bruno pipeline that exploded.”
• Between 2003 and 2010, PG&E increased pressure on gas pipelines in San Bruno to dangerous levels more than a dozen times, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The line was pushed to the federal limit of 400 pounds per square inch in December 2003 and again in 2008. Safety advocates say the 10 other pipelines that underwent similar tests could be vulnerable to future explosions.
• The National Transportation Safey Board has repeatedly criticized PG&E for serious “record-keeping problems” which they say could lead to “potentially unsafe” pressure settings and even future pipeline explosions. In one example, PG&E initially claimed that the San Bruno pipeline in question had no ruptured seams, which was later proven false.

It’s difficult to tell whether PG&E will maintain this obstinate throughout the legal process. For now, PG&E spokeswoman Brittany Chord has called the filing “a standard part of the legal process” and said that PG&E will “continue to move forward and work to resolve the claims of all parties as quickly as possible.”

UPDATE: PG&E is now claiming that it did not blame victims for last September’s pipeline explosion. “We want it to be crystal clear that no one at PG&E would suggest that the plaintiffs or residents of San Bruno impacted by this accident are somehow at fault,” the company said in a statement.

Photo credit: smi23le

Visit Eric Goldman’s blog for a great synthesis of the legal issues involved in this decision. Essentially, the court upheld Google’s motion to dismiss because the walking directions were applicable to all users, and was not one-on-one advice that indicated a special relationship between Google and the plaintiff. The court also ruled that although Google gave the directions, they do not provide input on how to interact with traffic. “It is clear that Google was not required to anticipate that a user of the Google Maps service would cross the road without looking for cars,” the court wrote, “and that, absent negligence on the user’s part, an injury while crossing the road would be unlikely.”

That’s not to say that pedestrian victims are always at fault for not taking all of the dangers of the road into account. In fact, Rosenberg also sued the driver of the car that hit her, and the court did not dismiss that aspect of the lawsuit. But the court ruled that the Google claim was too far fetched, since Google can’t be expected to warn of all possible dangers, just because they provide a service for the public. Rosenberg suggested that Google should warn against all potential risks, including “negligent drivers, drunk drivers, dangerous wildlife, sidewalks or roads in disrepair, lack of lighting, and other risks, and other risks that might only exist during certain times of day,” wrote the court.

Goldman seems to agree with the court’s logic here, but he also notes that the decision would likely be different if it dealt with GPS providers, which are generally paid services and work on a more one-to-one basis. It will be interesting to see whether we see additional injury lawsuits against Google or certain GPS providers. So for the mean time, always take extra precautions while navigating city streets, which means obeying all traffic signs, taking an extra second to make sure no vehicles are coming before crossing the street, and wearing all appropriate safety equipment.

Photo credit: GJELblogger

“Application of California law to a nationwide class, at least in some instances, would drastically expand the scope of relief available to plaintiffs (to the detriment of Toyota),” wrote U.S. District Judge James Selna. “The overwhelming majority of states don’t allow recovery if the only damage is economic damage.”

Needless to say, lawyers for the plaintiffs suing Toyota are not pleased with Judge Selna’s ruling. But the news wasn’t all bad. Previously, Toyota’s lawyers had motioned to consider a government report which blamed unintentional acceleration accidents largely on driver error as “judicial notice.” But Judge Selna ruled that the report was subject to dispute in light of other reports that pointed to mechanical and electronic problems as possible causes for those accidents.

But at the end of the day, Judge Selna’s ruling is a larger win for Toyota. “We’re gratified the Court has recognized that allowing a few handpicked plaintiffs to set the course for customers throughout the United States through this kind of ‘procedural engineering’ would go against established law, diminish Toyota’s substantive rights and undermine the purposes of these Multidistrict proceedings,” the company said in a statement.

Photo credit: Autoviva.com

Take a look at the Bee’s helpful infographic about the anatomy of metal-on-metal hip implants, which helps to explain why so many have required revision surgeries over the past few years. Essentially, the metal device was intended to have a longer life span for patients under 50. But in reality, the device has degraded quickly in a surprising number of patients, and has even sent chromium and cobalt into the blood stream, a problem which could lead to deafness and even heart disease. This is a serious problem that requires immediate medical attention.

These hip implant revision surgeries are unfortunate when considered from a distance. But the individual stories are even more distressing. Take Michael Stieler, for example, a Sonora man in his early 60s who used to work for Habitat for Humanity. He received a DePuy hip surgery in 2007 after chronic hip pain. Matters got even worse after the surgery, he says, as pain got so bad that he had to use crutches to get around, and he could even hear the hip implant click in and out of place. It’s been 3 months since the revision surgery, but Stieler is only now walking without crutches. “I’m a very active person, and this is hard for me,” he told the Sacramento Bee.

There are many stories just like this, but orthopedic surgeons say that DePuy hip implant patients should worry only if they are experiencing pain or other unusual symptoms. “The vast majority of implants will do well,” says Dr. Thomas Blumenfeld of the Sutter Orthopaedic Institute in Sacramento. Dr. Joshua Jacobs, orthopedic surgery chairman at Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center says that patients “should not ignore hip pain. It could be caused by bursitis or referred pain from the spine. Or it could be an adverse local tissue response.”

As DePuy hip implant lawsuits continue to pile on, be careful not to ignore any medical symptoms that could be a result of a failed hip surgery.

Bart v. Mr. Burns

Lionel Hutz first appears in the show’s second season, after Bart gets hit by a car while riding his skateboard through Springfield. Hutz greets the Simpsons in the hospital room and suggests that they sue Mr. Burns, the driver, even though Bart only suffers from a broken toe and a bump on the head. Burns offers to pay Homer $100 to prevent a potential lawsuit, but Homer refuses, noting that it would barely cover Bart’s medical bills. He then hires Hutz, who promises a $1 million cash settlement, of which he would receive a standard 50% fee.

Of course, the jury feels sympathy for Bart, who has been coached on what to say by hack Dr. Nick. This prompts Mr. Burns to offer a revised $500,000 settlement, which Homer refuses on advice from Hutz. Fortunately, Marge’s morals get in the way of a major pay day for the Simpsons. After Mr. Burns overhears Marge speak ill of “phony doctors,” his attorney calls Marge to the stand, where she testifies that the accident’s monetary hardships totaled $5. Marge’s testimony deflates Hutz’s case, and the Simpsons lose the lawsuit.

Marge v. Mr. Burns

The Simpsons’ house is sinking, and is in dire need of foundation repair. Fortunately, a job has just opened up at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and Marge decides to apply to help pay for the house renovation project. Mr. Burns quickly falls in love with Marge and attempts to woo her by playing Tom Jones music over the plant stereo system. Mr. Burns takes this a bit too far when he abducts Tom Jones and makes a full-fledged pass at Marge. When Marge turns him down, mentioning that she is married, she is promptly fired. Marge then threatens Mr. Burns with a wrongful termination lawsuit with the help of Lionel Hutz. Of course, Hutz is little help, and flees the scene after viewing Mr. Burns’ team of accomplished lawyers. Burns eventually has a change of heart, and makes it up to Homer and Marge with a personal concert, performed for them by a still-imprisoned Tom Jones.

Homer v. Frying Dutchman

This might be the most famous lawsuit in Simpsons history (fun fact: the episode was written by Conan O’Brien). Renowned glutton that he is, Homer convinces Marge to visit the Frying Dutchman seafood restaurant all-you-can-eat buffet after seeing an ad for it on TV. Homer proceeds to eat way too much food, and is eventually kicked out of the restaurant by the Sea Captain. Furious, Homer hires Hutz to sue the Frying Dutchman for false advertising, claiming that even an appetite as large as his should never be turned away from an all-you-can-eat buffet. Hutz famously called the situation “the most blatant case of false advertising since The Neverending Story.” In a change of pace, Hutz wins the case, and the Sea Captain agrees to display Homer as “Bottomless Pete: Nature’s Cruelest Mistake.”

Kwik-E-Mart v. Marge

There are lots of reasons that buying bourbon for Grandpa Simpson is a dangerous idea. But after most of Springfield is infected with an airborne flu from a shipment of juicers sent from Japan, leaving Marge in a germ-induced stupor, buying bourbon is even more dangerous. As a result, Marge forgets to pay for the bottle at the Kwik-E-Mart and is arrested for shoplifting. Hutz is unable to get Marge cleared of the charges, and she is forced to serve a month at Springfield Women’s Prison, sending the Simpson home into disarray. “Marge in Chains” also includes one of the show’s best Lionel Hutz quotes: “Well, he’s kind of had it in for me since I kinda ran over his dog. Well, replace the word ‘kinda’ with the word ‘repeatedly,’ and the word ‘dog’ with ‘son’.”

Bart v. Krusty the Clown

Bart is inflicted with an awful stomachache after eating a piece of jagged metal in a bowl of Krusty-O breakfast cereal. Since Bart must take a test at school that day, his parents don’t believe that he is sick, and send him to school anyway. After Bart convinces Mrs. Krabappel that he is sick, he collapses and wakes up at Springfield General Hospital, where he is treated for appendicitis. Bart sues Krusty and quickly receives a $100,000 settlement, but due to Hutz’s exorbitant legal fees, Bart only takes home $500. A bit of real-world legal pop-culture makes it’s way into this episode, as Hutz’s team of hack lawyers are named Robert Shaporo and Albert Dershman, pseudonyms for Robert Shapiro and Alan Dershowitz.

Itchy & Scratchy v. Itchy & Scratchy

While attending a parade for The Itchy & Scratchy Show, Bart meets Chester J. Lampwick, a homeless man who claims he is the show’s original creator. After showing Bart irrefutable proof that his idea was ripped off, the video is destroyed by the projector, leaving Bart scrambling for a scheme to earn Lampwick his rightful compensation. When the CEO of Itchy & Scratchy Studios refuses to pay Lampwick $800 billion, the crew hires Hutz to take the studio to court. Their case is a long shot until Bart remembers an original Itchy and Scratchy drawing for sale by the Comic Book Guy. The new evidence convinces the judge that the studio plagiarized Itchy and Scratchy from Lampwick, and he is awarded $800 billion, sending the studio into bankruptcy. Despite their victory, Bart and Lisa are distraught about the loss of their beloved show, until a set of mirror siblings win the studio a major cash settlement in a plagiarism lawsuit against the post office. Lampwick is rich, and Itchy and Scratchy is saved.

Also see our blog post on lawsuits in Seinfeld episodes, and our list of the best and worst TV lawyers.

This lawsuit is particularly troubling for Muni because San Francisco has a duty to protect its citizens from preventable accidents caused by government vehicles but endured some recent high-profile fiascoes. Earlier this year, for example, the agency agreed to settle a personal injury lawsuit by a pedestrian injured by the Powell-Mason cable car line in 2008 for $2 million. Such high costs indicate that it’s in everyone’s benefit — including Muni, pedestrians, and taxpayers – to reduce the number of fatal accidents on San Francisco city streets.

Earlier this month, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency approved a $20 million street redesign intended to slow city traffic speeds and reduce fatal Masonic Avenue accidents. While this is an encouraging step, the SFMTA should press on to implement similar measures on other high-speed, high-traffic arterial streets throughout California. Just yesterday, for example, a pedestrian was seriously injured in a Marina district pedestrian accident on Pierce and Lombard streets.

So until San Francisco’s transportation agencies take significant steps to reduce preventable bus accidents and implements stronger measures to reduce speeds on arterial streets, pedestrians should continue to take extra precautions while crossing streets or waiting for busses in high-traffic areas.

Photo credit: DaveFayram

“There are too many reports of runaway events in vehicles with the pedal and floor mat ‘fix’ to eliminate other causes such as electronic throttle control,” said Steve Berman, who represents the multidistrict litigation for economic claims against Toyota. “Already there are those asking tough questions about the report’s methodology. We…anticipate there will be a healthy debate concerning the ways NHTSA arrives at its conclusions.”

Of course, plaintiff law firms aren’t so opaque to claim that the government report will have no impact on their lawsuits. Donald Slavik, an attorney representing plaintiffs with personal injury and wrongful death claims against Toyota said the company’s lawyers will likely enter court “waiving it around claiming they’ve been exonerated.” More than that, the report is sure to have an impact on public opinion, which means that jurors could enter the case aware of it and easily swayed when it is brought up by the defense. That public perception could also be influenced by the $50 million safety institute Toyota launched last month in Michigan.

We’re still relatively near the beginning of a long back-and-forth process of multidistrict litigation against Toyota. New reports suggest, for example, that the first cases won’t begin until summer of 2013. So in the mean time, plaintiff law firms will remain optimistic. Plaintiff law firms even see some light in this week’s report, which urged the installation of brake-override systems in future vehicles. “Had Toyota included a brake-override system, as have other manufacturers” said Berman, “it is clear to us that the company would have prevented a series of well-documented accidents and fatalities.”

Photo credit: diongillard

The result of this alleged FDA oversight and DePuy coverup has led to physical discomfort, and many premature hip implant failures, requiring additional surgeries. The issue is that the ASR models were designed with a metal-on-metal replica joint. If not installed perfectly, this part could send harmful shards of chromium and cobalt into the blood stream and local tissue, potentially causing deafness or even heart disease. For some patients, like Mary Ann Doornbos, the defective hip implant caused injuries far worse than the original hip failure. As the Times reports:

One patient, Mary Ann Doornbos, a former I.B.M. employee in Illinois, remains on disability and still walks with a cane, one year after her A.S.R. was removed and replaced.

Ms. Doornbos, 56, said that she could not stand up long enough to cook a meal because the pain was constant. “I have been told that I have to be prepared that it will be like this for the rest of my life,” she said.

Instead of receiving an implant that would improve comfort and agility, the Times reports that patients like Ms. Doornbos have become guinea pigs for DePuy, while the company continues to profit. “You are basically testing these devices in an uncontrolled way on a large number of people,” said FDA critic Sidney Wolfe, director of the Public Citizen’s Health Research Group. Unfortunately, the FDA’s oversight of the DePuy hip implants was riddled with errors:

An internal agency review released several months ago found numerous flaws with the process, and the F.D.A. is proposing changes to it. To win agency permission to market the A.S.R. in the United States, DePuy never had to perform any patient testing of it. Agency officials said the company cited clinical data it had used five years earlier to win F.D.A. approval to sell another all-metal hip implant called the Ultima. The Ultima, however, used a cup that had a totally different design than the one used with the A.S.R.

Some observers predict that DePuy’s problems go much deeper than avoiding an FDA investigation. Dr. Stephen Graves, who runs Australia’s orthopedic database, says implants in that country indicate that DePuy has attempted to conceal hip implant irregularities that occurred as early as 2008. “When it is clear to the orthopedic community that a company has not been honest, that is a problem,” he said. “I think that J& J has a major issue with DePuy.” As the federal Multi-District Litigation against DePuy continues to grow, new reports have indicated that the ASR models fail more frequently for female patients.

Read the entire New York Times story for more on the potential dangers of DePuy’s faulty hip implants, the FDA’s lax oversight, and the legal road forward for patients who were harmed by the defective implants.