Oakland Personal Injury Attorney Blog

California Prison Guard Allowed to Pursue Premises Liability Case Against Employer

February 27, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

Any time you’re injured on someone else’s premises due to the negligence or misconduct of the property owner, there’s a lot that goes into obtaining a court judgment providing you with a damages award for the harm you’ve suffered. This is especially true if your injury occurred on your employer’s property because, in some of these cases, the law only allows you to recover workers’ compensation benefits. In one recent case involving a prison guard, the California Court of Appeal ruled that he should be allowed to pursue his premises liability lawsuit, since he both lived and worked on prison property, raising the possibility that he may not have been acting in the “scope of his employment” when he suffered his injury.

California Disability Law Does Not Require Providing Employees With Indefinite Leave

February 13, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A retail store chain was not required to hold a sales associate’s job indefinitely to satisfy the Fair Employment and Housing Act’s reasonable accommodation requirement, the California Court of Appeal recently ruled. The opinion illustrates that employers may have to provide leave of some duration as a reasonable accommodation, but there are limits as to the lengths the law requires an employer to go in accommodating an employee with a disability.

The employee in the case was Hourvash Dezham, a sales associate at Macy’s, where she’d worked since 1997. In 2010, the employee was injured on the job, breaking one of her toes. After seven weeks, Dezham returned to work, but with modified duties to keep her off her feet. Sometime later, the employer purchased a scooter for the employee to use at work. By May 2011, however, the employee remained injured, and her doctor required her to take leave again. Eight months later, Macy’s terminated her employment.

Improper Use of Driver’s Prior Traffic Offenses Derails $1.2M Award for Passenger

January 30, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A car salesman injured during a test drive when the customer crashed into a guardrail saw his $1.2 million award disappear due to a series of impermissible questions that the trial court allowed. The California Court of Appeal recently decided that the driver was entitled to a new trial after the trial court improperly allowed the salesman’s legal team to use the driver’s past speeding tickets as proof tending to indicate that the driver was negligent.

When Ran Li visited a BMW dealership in Concord, he probably never imagined that his test drive would be so eventful. While driving a M3, Li lost control of the vehicle on a highway ramp and crashed into a guardrail. Riding alongside Li was Kenneth Gonsalves, a salesman for the dealership. Gonsalves sued Li for major injuries he suffered to his back.

The Extent of an Employer’s Obligation in Responding to an Employee’s Disability Accommodation Request

January 15, 2015 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

An elementary school teacher’s Fair Employment and Housing Act lawsuit for disability discrimination, and the California Court of Appeal‘s ruling in it, highlight just how far an employer must go before it can say it has met its obligations under FEHA. The appellate court reversed a summary judgment in favor of the employer, ruling that the employer presented no proof that the assignment it gave the employee was a reasonable accommodation.

The dispute, which pitted elementary school teacher Lauralyn Swanson against her employer, the Morongo Unified School District, started in the fall of 2008, when Swanson sought to return to school after missing most of the previous year due to breast cancer. The school district placed the teacher in a fifth-grade classroom. The teacher requested a second-grade assignment, having recently taught second grade before her illness and because she feared her health limitations would physically prevent her from performing the tasks involved in the fifth-grade assignment.

Family Able to Sue Restaurant Owner for Dangerous Parking Lot, Even When Injury Occurred Offsite

December 31, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

The family of a motorcyclist killed along the Pacific Coast Highway recently succeeded in persuading the California Court of Appeal that the case they presented against the owner of a restaurant property should not have been thrown out by the trial court. The family’s victory is notable because the fatal injury did not occur on the restaurant’s property. Even though the injury in question occurred offsite, the attorneys for the family raised a potentially valid basis for finding the restaurant owner liable because the owner reasonably could have anticipated that the restaurant’s confusing parking lot exit could lead to an accident and injuries.

The family’s suit arose as a result of the tragic events of March 16, 2011. Joseph Annocki was driving his motorcycle when he was struck by a vehicle driven by Terry Turner. Turner was leaving the parking lot of Geoffrey’s, a restaurant situated along PCH and owned by Peterson Enterprises LLC, when he attempted an ill-advised left-hand turn and collided with Annocki. Annocki died as a result of the crash.

Employee With ADHD Not Covered by ADA When His Primary Impairment is Being ‘Cantankerous’

December 15, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act offers relatively broad protection to employees, an employee must still prove that his or her disability substantially impairs one or more life activities. A police officer with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) lost his ADA Case on appeal because the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals determined that his impairment stemmed not from his disability but from his being a “cantankerous” person.

Matthew Weaving, a police officer in Oregon, had suffered from ADHD since childhood. Weaving’s colleagues and superiors often described him aloof, abrasive, and intimidating. Despite his behavior, Weaving had risen to the rank of sergeant with the Hillsboro Police Department by 2008. However, after a confrontation with a subordinate officer, the department placed him on leave. While away from work, the officer consulted a medical professional, and the doctor determined that he had adult ADHD. Weaving returned to the police department and requested a disability accommodation based upon his ADHD.

Car Owner’s Failure to Maintain Vehicle Doesn’t Provide Grounds for Additional Recovery for Injured Passenger

November 28, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A woman injured in an auto accident tried an unusual technique to expand her possible recovery from an insurance company. She argued that, although her injuries occurred after one single-vehicle crash, they were the result of two separate and distinct acts of negligence and, as a result, arose from two legal “accidents.” The unique approach failed, however, as the California Court of Appeal agreed with a lower court that there were not two legal accidents, but rather two concurrent acts of negligence leading to one accident.

Kari Amaya owned a car that she insured with Mercury Insurance Co. Her policy covered herself and Ashley Amaya. One day in July 2011, Ashley Amaya allowed Carla Hurtado to drive the car. Hurtado was speeding on the freeway when a tire blew out. The driver lost control and crashed, seriously injuring a passenger, Monique Jones. Jones incurred more than $200,000 in medical bills. Analysis of the car’s tires revealed that they were severely worn, with less than 1/32 of an inch of tread left on them.

University Allowed to Require Professor to Submit to Psychological Exam

November 14, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

A recent ruling in a Fair Employment and Housing Act violation case provides beneficial information about when an employer is, and is not, able to demand that an employee undergo a psychological examination. A recent California Court of Appeal ruling went in favor of the employer, since the test was both job-related and necessary for the employer’s business. The court also upheld the employer’s decision not to initiate an interactive process, since the employee did not complete the required steps to trigger that requirement under the FEHA.

The case involved the University of San Francisco and one of its mathematics professors, John Kao. The underlying dispute emerged after the professor’s behavior allegedly took a dramatic turn. After teaching at the university for more than a decade and a half without any interpersonal incident, the professor became the subject of several colleagues’ reports to superiors, claiming that Kao exhibited hostile, aggressive, volatile, and unstable behavior around them while discussing his displeasure with the way the university was going about recruiting a new math professor.

Jury Verdict Holding Driver Not Liable for Crash Survives Despite Improper Testimony

October 30, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

Assessing fault in multi-vehicle crashes, especially those on multi-lane freeways, can be particularly challenging. The driver who creates a chain reaction of danger and harm may not be physically involved in the accident at all, and pinning causation on a driver not involved in an accident is often very difficult. This scenario played out in one couple’s unsuccessful recent lawsuit against a driver who allegedly made an improper lane change. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the outcome, even though the jury heard improper causation testimony from a CHP officer, since the trial judge issued a special jury instruction making clear that the jury was required to ignore the officer’s statement.

In 2008, Leo Pope and Judi Nightingale were driving on Interstate 10 in San Bernardino County when a vehicle driven by 19-year-old Debbie Sert struck them. Pope and Nightingale sued both the teenager and another driver, Thomas Stanley. Stanley, they claimed, made an improper lane change into Sert’s lane, causing her to lose control of her car. Stanley was not involved in the accident and did not stop at the scene. The police report stated that Sert, not Stanley, caused the accident by making an unsafe lane change.

Court Declares Employers Must Pay for Work-Related Calls Made on Employees’ Personal Cell Phones

October 15, 2014 | by Stephen M. Fuerch

In a decision that may have wide-reaching implications, the California Court of Appeal ruled that, if an employee’s job requires him or her to use a personal cell phone for work-related activities, the employer must reimburse the employee a reasonable amount for that usage. The court’s decision concluded that employers have this reimbursement obligation even if the employee’s cell phone service plan gives the employee unlimited minutes of cell phone usage time or the employee did not pay the bill for the cell phone.

The case arose after Colin Cochran, a customer service manager for Schwan’s Home Service, Inc., filed a proposed class action on behalf of himself and 1,500 other Schwan’s employees. The employees were customer service managers and route managers, whose job duties required them to maintain frequent telephonic interaction with customers of Schwan’s food delivery service. The employer did not provide cell phones to its customer service managers and route managers, instead requiring them to use their personal devices. Cochran filed his suit after the employer refused to provide reimbursement for the use of the personal cell phones.