Articles Posted in Personal Injury

Hotel and motel negligence in Vista can take many different forms in California, including negligent security measures that result in assaults or other acts of violence on hotel or motel premises. When a hotel or motel owner does not provide adequate security to customers on the premises, the hotel or motel ultimately may be liable for injuries resulting from a third party’s violent acts. To be clear, the injury victim may be eligible to hold a hotel or motel liable for violence perpetrated by a third party by filing a negligent security claim. The following are five things to know about hotel negligence and assaults in Vista.

  1. Negligent Security Claims are Personal Injury Lawsuits

Negligent security claims filed against hotels and motels are types of personal injury lawsuits. As such, the statute of limitations for most other types of personal injury cases will apply.

After an Oceanside car accident in which another motorist is at fault, you should be thinking about your options for filing a claim for financial compensation. For most injury victims in motor vehicle collisions, the first step in seeking compensation is filing an auto insurance claim. Auto insurance claims can be filed as first-party claims through an injured person’s own auto insurance policy, or as third-party claims through the at-fault motorist’s auto insurance policy. When an auto insurance claim does not result in sufficient compensation, an injured person will often move on to file a car accident lawsuit. However, in some cases, the defendant will attempt to reduce his or her liability by raising the issue of comparative fault. 

What is comparative fault, and how can it impact your payout in an Oceanside car accident claim?

Understanding Damages in a Car Accident and the Effect of Comparative Fault

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) should always be taken seriously in San Clemente, whether a concussion occurs on a sports field or a vehicle occupant sustains head trauma in a car crash. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), traumatic brain injuries “affect how the brain works,” and they are “a major cause of death and disability in the United States.” On average, 166 Americans suffer fatal brain injuries every day, and more than 223,000 people have to be hospitalized with TBIs each year. Who is liable when these injuries occur?

  1. Responsible Party Will Depend Upon the Specific Facts of Your Case

The party or parties responsible for a TBI will depend upon the specific facts of your case. The CDC reports that approximately 15% of high school kids in the U.S. report sustaining at least one concussion in sports or recreation activities, in which case the educational institution or a coach may be liable. At the same time, studies also show that motor vehicle collisions and falls are leading causes of brain injuries, which could result in a motorist or a property owner being responsible for paying damages.

During the holiday season in Poway, many families travel to Southern California for vacations while others travel to other parts of the country to visit family members or friends. When you are staying in a hotel or motel for the holidays, it is important to understand potential hazards and injury risks in these spaces and to take precautions. Our experienced Poway hotel injury attorneys have tips for you to avoid accidents and injuries at hotels and motels over the holidays. 

Watch Kids Around the Pool Area

If you are staying at a hotel or motel with a pool, it may be tempting to say “yes” when your kids ask if they can go down to the pool on their own. Drowning accidents are much too common at hotels and motels across the country, and most hotels do not have lifeguards on duty who can provide any kind of supervision. Even if you have teenagers, it is important to take precautions and to supervise your children while they are swimming.

Anytime another party’s negligence or intentional wrongdoing results in another person suffering a serious or deadly injury, it may be possible to file a personal injury lawsuit or a wrongful death claim in Carlsbad. Yet given that personal injury law is such a broad area of the law, it can be confusing to distinguish between and among different kinds of personal injury cases and their required elements. For example, does a plaintiff need to prove something other than negligence in order to win certain types of personal injury cases? Does negligence look different depending upon the particular type of personal injury claim the plaintiff is pursuing? Our Carlsbad personal injury attorneys can provide you with examples about the differences among personal injury lawsuits. 

Motor Vehicle Collision Claims

Many motor vehicle collision cases—including car crashes, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, and pedestrian and bicycle accidents—begin with insurance claims. These accidents can also result in motor vehicle accident lawsuits that require the injured plaintiff to prove that the at-fault driver was negligent. In a typical traffic collision case, negligence means failing to observe the level of care behind the wheel that a reasonable person would under the circumstances.

While grocery stores or supermarkets in Oceanside, California are a required weekly stop for most individuals and families, these are also retail establishments where serious accidents and injuries can occur. Although many injuries that happen at supermarkets result from slips and falls, grocery stores can also be places where struck-by injuries occur when products fall off a shelf unexpectedly, or where other types of premises liability accidents and motor vehicle collisions can occur. In many instances, the retail establishment is liable for injuries that occur on the property. Our experienced Oceanside personal injury lawyers want to tell you more about different types of slip, trip, and fall accidents that occur frequently in supermarkets in Southern California. 

Liquid Spills and Oceanside Slips and Falls

Liquid spills are a common cause of slips and falls in grocery stores throughout Southern California. It is often easy for liquid spills to occur when a customer accidentally knocks a jar off a shelf, and a liquid ends up spilling in the grocery aisle. If these kinds of liquid spills—of sodas, cooking oils, sauces, dressings—are not quickly cleaned up, a shopper might not even realize the floor is slick and can slip and fall.

Whether you have traveled to Escondido from a state far from California or you are a California resident and have simply planned a weekend trip to Southern California to spend time at the beach with your family, keep in mind that serious and deadly injuries can happen at hotels. While you might be prepared for the possibility of a car crash while you are traveling on the freeway, and although you may be taking precautions to prevent a drowning accident at the beach, you should know that hotels and motels can be dangerous places, too. When hotel or motel negligence results in a serious personal injury, you may be able to file a claim for financial compensation with assistance from an Escondido personal injury lawyer. In the meantime, the following are three things to know about hotel injuries in Escondido. 

Hotel Negligence Can Result in Many Types of Injuries

There are many different types of injuries that can result from hotel or motel negligence. For example, you or your child might sustain a serious injury as a result of a drowning accident near an unattended hotel or motel pool. Or you or another guest might sustain a serious injury in a slip and fall accident resulting from damaged flooring or a broken outdoor light that the hotel maintenance staff failed to replace. Slips and falls at hotels and motels can also occur in breakfast areas, at bars, and around pool decks due to liquid spills. At the same time, hotels may also be responsible for third-party assaults that happen because of negligent security—such as a hotel’s failure to repair a damaged door lock or window in your room. 

Hotel and motel hot tubs in Vista can pose a wide variety of risks to guests, from injuries caused by slips and falls around the hot tub to burn injury risks to drowning accident hazards for younger children or intoxicated guests. Yet it can be difficult to know whether an injury you sustained in or around a Vista hotel hot tub was the result of the hotel’s negligence, and thus whether you may be eligible to file a personal injury lawsuit. A recent hot tub accident lawsuit in California reported in Courtroom View Network emphasizes that these cases can be complicated, and it is essential to have an experienced Vista personal injury lawyer on your side. 

Recent Hotel Hot Tub Accident Lawsuit in California

A parent recently filed a lawsuit against a Howard Johnson hotel in California, according to the Courtroom View Network, after her daughter suffered a serious traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a hotel hot tub accident. The case involved the child’s near-drowning, and the mother alleged that the hotel was negligent because its hot tub was “too easily accessible for children,” and because “the hotel didn’t take adequate safety precautions to protect children playing in the facility.” The hotel argued that the plaintiff’s failure to supervise her daughter was actually the cause of the TBI the child sustained in the hot tub. The jury agreed with the hotel, and the case ultimately ended in a settlement, but it makes clear that the hotel likely would have been responsible if the circumstances were slightly different.

As summer approaches in San Clemente and throughout Southern California, more families will be spending time at the beach and in neighborhood pools. While swimming can be a great summertime activity for children and adults alike, it is critical to remember that swimming also comes with serious risks of drowning injuries and deaths. Indeed, according to a report from CNN Health, drowning is the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1 and 4, and nearly 400 kids under the age of 15, on average, die every year in drowning incidents in pools and spas. Adults, too, can sustain fatal drowning injuries if they are caught in rip tides or if they consume alcohol before boating or swimming. 

With summer just a couple of months away, now is the time to refresh your knowledge of drowning risks to help prevent a drowning death this summer.

What Do You Need to Know About Drowning Risks?

For most Valley Center residents, news of a distracted driving accident does not produce an image of an older adult driver talking or texting on a cell phone. Yet seniors in California routinely use their phones when they are behind the wheel of an automobile, including in San Diego County. California has had a ban on handheld cell phone use while driving since 2008, but seniors, along with drivers of other ages, continue to talk and text on their phones despite the ban. Indeed, data from a distracted driving study in Southern California suggests that teenagers and young adults certainly are not the only age group responsible for distracted driving crashes resulting from improper cell phone use. What should you know about older adult drivers and the risks of distracted driving? 

UC San Diego School of Medicine Study Shows Seniors Engage in Distracted Driving Behaviors at High Rates

According to a study conducted by researchers at the UC San Diego, seniors use cell phones behind the wheel much more frequently than you might think. Indeed, researchers from the University of California San Diego School of Medicine’s Training, Research, and Education for Driving Safety (TREDS) program found that almost 60% of seniors aged 65 and older use their cell phones for talking or texting while driving, putting themselves and others on the road at serious risk of injury in a distracted driving collision. 

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