Car accident and pedestrian accident lawsuits usually involve claims that one or more motor vehicle drivers was negligent. However, an experienced injury lawyer can tell you it may be worth exploring whether other individuals or entities might also be responsible. A good example of this is landowner liability for crash-related injuries.
For instance, if you’re on a public road, we may explore whether the government poorly maintained, designed or constructed the road in a way that increased the odds of an accident or enhanced the severity of it. If you’re on commercial private property, we may explore whether the property owner failed in its duty of care to provide a safe means of ingress and egress for customers. And then there are also some cases where a private property owner could be liable for injury that occurs on a public road – but usually the circumstances to successfully make such a claim are limited.
Recently, the California Supreme Court took on this issue, deciding that landowners do not have a duty to insist invitees in crossing a public street when the landowner doesn’t do more than maintain a parking lot that requires invitees to cross the street to access landowner’s premises – so long as the dangers of the public street aren’t magnified or obscured in some way by a condition of landowner’s property or some action taken by the landowner. Continue reading →