(Please note: the names and locations of all parties have been changed to protect the confidentiality of the participants in this car accident/personal injury case and its proceedings.)
Mandatory Settlement Conference Statement of Plaintiff Michael Owen
FACTS
This matter arises from negligence of Defendant Dina White in causing an automobile accident on January 22, 2006, at the intersection of University Avenue and Green Street in the City and County of Sacramento. Plaintiff Michael Owen was the restrained driver of a 1998 B.M.W. 528i proceeding eastbound on University Avenue. He was in the process of crossing the intersection of Green on the green light. He was free of any back and neck pain.
Defendant Dina White had been proceeding westbound on University Avenue in her 2004 Audi Quattro, and made a sudden left turn, directly into the path of Mr. Owen’s vehicle. Ms. White said that she was proceeding slowly. Mr. Owen said that she was flying in such a manner that Mr. Owen was unable to avoid the inevitable impact.
Mr. Owen, now 58, is a former commercial airline pilot, and is now a limousine driver. In this accident he sustained neck and back injuries that can only be alleviated by surgery. Mr. Owen has also lost income because the constant pain from the accident injury makes it impossible to drive as many hours as he did before the accident, or to lift heavy luggage in and out of the vehicle.
LIABILITY
Defendant White is liable for this accident. Her testimony at deposition, that she did not see Mr. Owen’s B.M.W. until moments before the impact, too late to honk, brake or do anything to avoid the collision, is a confession that she entered the intersection before it was safe to do so. She says that she stopped at the red arrow in the left turn lane. After that point in time was entirely uncertain of what occurred. She does not know whether Mr. Owen’s B.M.W. was in the intersection when she first saw it. Ms. White is unable to say whether or not the B.M.W. was lawfully in the intersection when she first began her ill fated left turn. (See Part 2 of 5.)
For more information you are welcome to contact Sacramento personal injury lawyer, Moseley Collins.