Confidential
Settlement – $500,000Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Torrance
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Lance S. Gams
(Office of the Santa Monica City Attorney)
Facts
On Aug. 7, 1994, the defendant driver's wife executed an agreement to rent an automobile from the defendant rental company. The defendant rental company owned/leased the automobile. That night at 7:50 p.m., the defendant driver was driving the vehicle on SR152 near Bloomfiled Avenue when he pulled off to the right shoulder of the highway. The plaintiff, a 12-year-old girl, was seated in the left rear passenger seat of the automobile next to her mother. Neither the plaintiff, nor any back seat passernger was wearing seat belts or other safety restraints. The plaintiff claimed the defendant driver, who was her grand-uncle, made an abrupt and allegedly illegal u-turn directly into the path of the defendant driver of a truck that was towing a trailer carrying two horses, which resulted in a side-impact collision to the rented vehicle. The plaintiff claimed the defendant driver executed the turn because he wanted to photograph a field of flowers which he had just passed on the opposite side of the highway. The defendant truck driver denied liability. The plaintiff, through a guardian ad litem, brought this action against the rental car company, the rental car driver and the truck driver based on negligence and negligent entrustment theories of recovery.
Settlement Discussions
The plaintiff made a settlement demand for $1 million (policy limits). The defendant rental company and rental car driver made a settlement offer of $200,000.
Specials in Evidence
$26,000 $8,000 to $10,000 (future surgery to correct visual tracking of injured eye).
Damages
The minor plaintiff claimed impairment and loss of future earnings and vocational potential.
Injuries
The plaintiff alleged she sustained closed-head trauma with a bifrontal hematoma, a fracture through the lateral wall of the right orbit and a fracture of the maxillary sinus resulting in permanent right-eye blindness. The closed-head trauma was non-permanent and asymptomatic.
Other Information
The settlement was reached approximately two years after the case was filed. A mediation was held on March 4, 1997 before Justice John A. Arguelles, retired, resulting in the reported settlement.
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