Bay Area Bicycle Law

Personal Injury

Oakland, Palo Alto, Sacramento

Michael O. Stephenson, the founder and chief legal counsel of Bay Area Bicycle Law, remembers his own bike crash. He was in high school, racing down a steep hill in Arcata, when he lost control, flew over the handlebars and left skin on the street. "I might have died without my helmet," he said. "It was intense, an out-of-body experience in which I seemed to see the whole thing from 20 feet away."

Most of the others in his five-lawyer firm, founded in 2010, are cyclists similarly familiar with roadway dangers.

"We're a niche firm with sub-niches," Stephenson said. "There are dooring cases and right hook cases. There are road rage cases. We've seen them all."

Some firm clients collided with moving vehicles that took right turns into a bike's path. About one-third of his clients were on their bikes when they struck suddenly-opened car doors. California law holds motorists liable in dooring cases, but Stephenson said insurers often ignore it.

"Insurance companies have fought that reasonable principle more and more, as if cyclists should have known a driver or passenger was about to open the door."

The firm is investigating a January 2019 road rage incident in Emeryville in which an Uber driver, angered by a cyclist who objected to his stopping in a bike lane to let off a passenger, followed the bike to a parking lot and struck it head-on, pushing bike and rider into adjacent bushes. The rider appeared moderately hurt. Police arrested the Uber driver and prosecutors charged him with misdemeanor assault.

"The rider reached out to the East Bay bike coalition and they referred him to us," Stephenson said. "You can sue Uber or Lyft, but they typically blame it on the driver or the passenger."

Managing attorney Michelle L. Weiss is preparing for a Nov. 4 trial in San Francisco County Superior Court in a case that typifies her firm's work. The client is a 60-year-old caregiver for the disabled, Chuck Schneidmuller, who was biking home from the gym on a weekend in the Financial District when he collided with the opening door of defendant Creighton Casper's vehicle.

"He was doored, he's uninsured and he received a severe back injury that required surgery and impacted his ability to work," Weiss said. Schneidmuller v. Casper, CGC-17-561866 (S.F. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 13, 2017).

"They're denying liability, which is crazy," she said. "California law is clear on this. They're challenging us on every front, even though this is the least ambiguous type of accident. They're also saying he didn't need surgery or that if he did, it was for a preexisting condition. His hospital bill alone was $400,000."

The case will rely on experts, she added, including an orthopedist, the client's surgeon, a radiologist and a medical billing specialist. "They have an economist to challenge our lost wages claim. But this is a seven-figure case."

Weiss, who herself bikes to work, said that while door strike cases comprise much of her firm's work, another aspect includes road defect cases that fall under premises liability law.

"And we have a nice benefit here," she said. "Everyone gets a $600-per-year bicycle expenses reimbursement."

Stephenson started the firm after working at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Portland, Oregon.

"Growing up, my heroes were lawyers who helped people," he said. "But I realized that now, gosh, I was the bad guy. I was representing corporations. I wanted to get on the other side of the 'v.'"

He said that he used to bike everywhere in the Bay Area, even giving up car ownership for a time. "But then, after doing this work for awhile, I saw so many collision investigations that I don't ride much in the city anymore."

-- John Roemer