Los Angeles Personal Injury Attorney Blog

Published on: November 17, 2020

What disqualifies you from driving for Lyft in California?

Many Californians rely on the gig economy to supplement their incomes, and some people earn all of their income through driving for ride-share companies. To drive for Lyft, drivers must meet a number of different requirements. Many potential Lyft drivers are disqualified because they cannot meet the minimum standards. While it is good that Lyft has basic requirements that its drivers must meet, some Lyft drivers are still unsafe. Each year, a number of Lyft drivers are involved in motor vehicle accidents. If you suffer injuries in an accident caused by a negligent Lyft driver, you may be entitled to recover damages for your losses. An experienced Lyft accident attorney at the Steven M. Sweat Personal Injury Lawyers might help you to recover compensation for your losses. Here is some information about the requirements for drivers who want to drive for Lyft.

License and age requirements

To drive for Lyft, you must be at least the minimum age for the area in which you live. The minimum age to drive for Lyft varies from state to state. Some cities also have different minimum age requirements. In general, Lyft drivers in California must be a minimum of 25 years old. Several cities and counties have a lower minimum age of 21 for Lyft drivers, however. You can search your city to see the minimum age requirement on Lyft’s website.

Published on: October 28, 2020

Los Angeles Slow Streets Program Aims to Improve Traffic Safety

by Steven M. Sweat

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the City of Los Angeles implemented the Slow Streets program in May 2020.[1] This program allowed more people to get fresh air and enjoy their neighborhoods while large portions of the city were shut down in response to the spread of the virus. While people were under stay-at-home orders, the Slow Streets program allowed them to have more room to exercise outdoors. The program proved to be popular with residents of many neighborhoods throughout the city, prompting the City Council to consider implementing it as a permanent option instead of a temporary measure. In addition to drawing more people outdoors to enjoy their neighborhoods, the Slow Streets program may also help to reduce the number of traffic injuries and fatalities caused by vehicles speeding through neighborhoods.

What is the Slow Streets program?

With many people ordered to stay at home during the pandemic, Los Angeles implemented a temporary measure to allow people to exercise outdoors in their neighborhoods called the Slow Streets program. This program allowed neighborhoods with sponsoring organizations to apply to have their areas designated for slow streets. Neighborhoods that have been approved for the program are blocked off with signs that prohibit cutting through and only allow local traffic. The signs also call for drivers to slow down and safely share the roads. After the program was implemented, a few hundred neighborhoods submitted applications. The program allows people who live in affected neighborhoods to enjoy cycling, jogging, and walking in a safer environment free from speeding cars.[2]

Published on: October 12, 2020

Los Angeles Parking Lot Accident Not the Fault of the Adjacent Business

by Steven M. Sweat

Property owners and occupiers in Los Angeles have a duty to maintain their premises in reasonably safe conditions to protect lawful visitors from being injured. This duty can sometimes extend to the adjacent, publicly-owned property when the property owner has exercised control over it in some way and has created or contributed to the dangerous condition. In Lopez v. City of Los Angeles, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. B288396, the appeals court considered a case in which it was unclear whether a property owner had exerted control over a portion of a city-owned sidewalk that abutted against its driveway and caused the plaintiff to suffer serious injuries.[1]

Factual and procedural background

Jose Luis Lopez, Jr. was walking in the rain in Feb. 2014. When he came to the driveway leading to Wally’s Wine & Spirits, Lopez stepped in a pothole that was filled with rainwater. This caused his ankle to dislocate, and he tore three ligaments and broke two bones. Wally’s Wine & Spirits leases the facility to store wine for restaurants and a liquor store. Traffic in the parking lot is limited to delivery vans and vehicles of customers who pay to store wine in a temperature-controlled room. The property is managed by the Northern Trust Bank of California and is owned by the Marvin A. Kahn Deceased Trust.

Published on: October 1, 2020

Top Five Causes of Traffic Deaths in Los Angeles

by Steven M. Sweat

Many people in Los Angeles are killed or seriously injured in automobile accidents every year. To try to lower the high rates of traffic fatalities, the city implemented the Vision Zero policy in 2016. This policy’s goal is to reduce traffic fatalities in the city to zero by 2025. However, the number of accidents and traffic deaths have continued to increase despite the policy. When people are killed in accidents in Los Angeles, their family members have a right to file lawsuits to recover monetary damages when the accidents are caused by other people or entities. While these types of accidents may be caused by many things, the following are the top five causes of fatal collisions in Los Angeles as revealed by Vision Zero’s Safety Study for Los Angeles in 2017.

1. Speeding

Driving at high speeds was the leading cause of traffic deaths in Los Angeles in 2017. When drivers drive at high speeds, their visual fields narrow. This makes it more difficult for drivers to see others in their peripheral vision. Driving at high speeds also makes it more difficult to stop in time to avoid an accident. When a car’s speed is doubled, its braking distance increases by four times. The combination of a reduced visual field and a longer distance for braking makes speeding the most common cause of fatal accidents.

Published on: September 15, 2020

Los Angeles Tenants Allowed to Sue Landlords for Personal Injury Despite Arbitration Agreement

by Steven M. Sweat

In urban areas of California like Los Angeles, slumlords take advantage of tenants by failing to keep their properties in a reasonably safe condition. When landlords fail to make repairs or to maintain their properties, tenants who are left to live in uninhabitable conditions may have grounds to file lawsuits. In Williams v. 3620 W. 102nd Street, Inc., Cal. Ct. App. Case No. B297824, the appeals court considered whether an arbitration clause contained in a residential lease should compel the parties to arbitration rather than allowing the tenants to pursue their rights through litigation.[1]

Factual and procedural background

Keisa Williams signed a lease in March 2014 to rent an apartment located at 3620 W. 102nd Street in Los Angeles with Rubin Womack. The two lived in the apartment with Williams’ two children and another person. In 2015, the lease was renewed. The tenants filed a lawsuit against the owners in Oct. 2016 claiming that they had violated the warranty of habitability and had engaged in negligence because of a lack of pest control in their apartment and in the building’s common areas. The tenants alleged that their apartment was infested with bed bugs and had several other problems that the owners had failed to correct. Because of the bed bugs, the tenants alleged that they had suffered personal injuries and property damages.

Published on: August 31, 2020

California May Hold Online Retailers Like Amazon.com Liable for Defective Products

by Steven M. Sweat

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In California, the manufacturers of defective products are strictly liable for injuries that are caused by the defects to people who use the products in the manner in which they were intended. The state extended strict liability to retailers of products in 1964. However, online retailers, including Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and others, have relied on a loophole to escape strict liability. If passed and enacted, a new assembly bill would erase the loophole and expose online retailers to liability when defective projects that are sold on their platforms by third-party sellers injure consumers.[1]

Proposed legislation to end defective products loophole

California AB 3262 was introduced by Assemblyman Mark Stone (D-Santa Cruz) on Feb. 21, 2020.[2] This law would extend strict liability for defective products to online retailers. Currently, product designers and manufacturers are strictly liable for injuries caused by their products. Brick-and-mortar retailers are also liable when they sell products to consumers that are defective and cause injuries. While laws have been in place to hold retailers accountable when they sell defective products that injure consumers, online retailers, including Amazon, Etsy, and eBay have been able to rely on a loophole to escape liability.

Published on: August 19, 2020

Los Angeles Court Rules Against Injury Victim

by Steven M. Sweat

In California, landlords owe a duty of care to their tenants to correct hazards that they know about or reasonably should discover on their property. However, this duty does not extend to hazards created by the tenants that the landlords do not know about and could not have reasonably discovered. In Lin Joon Oh v. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Assn. of America, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. B297567, the court considered a case involving a tenant’s handling and storage of hazardous chemicals on its leased premises and whether the landlord was liable to pay damages.

Factual and procedural background

Ji Hoon Oh was employed by I.B.S. Beauty Co., which leased the property from Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. The property was managed by Cushman & Wakefield Management Corporation and consisted of part of a building in an industrial complex in Santa Fe Springs, California. IBS initially leased the property from TIAA in Oct. 2017 and subsequently renewed the lease multiple times. The last renewal of the lease occurred in Oct. 2015. IBS sold a hair product called MOA Oil and stored it in 55-gallon drums in the facility. The drums did not have markings to indicate that the chemicals were hazardous or volatile.

Published on: July 29, 2020

If Your Los Angeles Injury Attorney Says They Don’t “Litigate” Cases, You Hired the Wrong Law Firm

by Steven M. Sweat

Billboard-Lawyers-Los-Angeles As a Los Angeles personal injury lawyer that has been helping accident victims and their families for over 25 years, I wanted to write a blog about something that I have begun hearing more and more of in the past few years. Clients are coming to me stating that they hired a personal injury attorney, they attorney submitted a settlement demand to the insurance company, the settlement offer was either nothing or not a reasonable amount and then they were told, “You’ll have to find another lawyer, we don’t litigate cases.” This is preposterous to me! If an attorney was willing to sign up your case because they believed that the claim had merit, why would they not be willing to file a lawsuit? The answer is simple and it goes back to something I’ve been “harping on” for some time now: There are too many self-proclaimed “personal injury attorneys” in Los Angeles that are simply out to do the least amount of work on each case, get what they can get, and move on to the next case!

What are “settlement mills” and why are they bad for every personal injury victim in Los Angeles?

As I blogged about extensively here, there is a disturbing trend across the United States especially in large metropolitan areas like Los Angeles when it comes to “Personal Injury Law Firms.” The trend is for lawyers to spend big bucks on advertising or use other methods to get a high volume of clients, try to do very little work on the case, try to get a settlement as quickly as possible and then move on to the next case. Why is this their business model? In order to sustain a high volume practice where the majority of the overhead consists of money spent on advertising such as television ads, radio spots or plastering the sides of the freeways with billboards, less money must be spent on the actual pursuit of the claim. For example, if a law firm is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month (which some in L.A. are doing) to get new “sign ups”, how does this leave any resources to be spent on things like attorney and staff salaries, court costs, costs of taking depositions, cost of hiring expert witnesses and other expenses that go into fully prosecuting the claim? The answer is there it doesn’t! From a time standpoint, how is it possible to give each claim enough attention to ensure that the best result happens when you have thousands of files at any given time? The answer is it isn’t!! The business model of the settlement mill, therefore, is to bring in as many cases as possible, try to spend as little money and time as possible to get the case to settlement, get paid quickly and move on to the next case.

Published on: July 27, 2020

Person Injured by Running Dog Allowed to Recover for Personal Injuries

by Steven M. Sweat

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Californians who suffer injuries in dog attacks that are not caused by bites may be able to recover damages by proving that the dogs’ owners were negligent. In Wolf v. Weber, Cal. Ct. App. Case No. A157937, the court considered whether the primary assumption of the risk doctrine bars negligence claims against dog owners when an injury occurs in an off-leash dog-walking trail.[1]

Factual background

Diane Wolf and her husband were walking their dog on a trail in Tilden Regional Park on Oct. 6, 2016, in an area in which dogs are allowed to be off their leashes but only when the dogs are under their owners’ control. Alexander Weber was also walking along the trail with his dog, a Boxer-Argentinian Mastiff mix, and a friend, Martin Cenek. Neither of the dogs was wearing leashes. Both groups were near the end of the trail, and Weber and his friend were approximately 70 feet ahead of Wolf and her husband. Weber’s dog started to lag behind his owner and then turned and headed towards Wolf, her husband, and her dog. Wolf yelled that she was afraid, and Weber tried to get his dog to return by yelling at him to sit. However, his dog did not obey. Weber called him several times, and his dog started to return to him. Wolf was scared and turned around and started to run when she felt something hit her in the back of the knee. She fell and broke two bones in her leg and dislocated her ankle.

Published on: June 9, 2020

What do California Drivers Need to Know About Proposition 213?

by Steven M. Sweat

If you are injured in a motor vehicle accident in California that results from the negligence of another driver, you may be entitled to recover damages for your losses. However, your ability to recover damages may be limited if you were driving an uninsured vehicle when you were injured. This is because of a California law that limits the ability of uninsured motorists to recover damages for their non-economic losses. While this law prevents people who do not have insurance from recovering all of the damages to which they would otherwise be entitled to receive, there are multiple exceptions. Getting help from an experienced accident attorney in Los Angeles may help you to recover fair compensation for your losses.

What is Proposition 213?

Proposition 213 is a law that was passed in 1996 in California. The insurance industry spent millions of dollars lobbying for this law to be passed. Insurance companies have been able to enjoy billions of dollars of added profits by avoiding paying non-economic damages to injured drivers who were driving uninsured vehicles at the time of their collisions. Proposition 213 is codified at Cal. Civ. Code § 3333.4, which reads as follows: