Our client's husband, a father of three and an attorney, was riding his motorcycle on State Route 33 near Ojai with his Christian biker club on a Sunday morning when a car crossed the centerline on a curve the road itself had been quietly warning Caltrans about for a decade. Both riders and the other driver died at the scene. A Ventura County jury returned a $14.1 million verdict in this missing warning signs highway case, finding the State of California 90 percent at fault for a curve it had known was dangerous since at least 2001 and never adequately signed until after this crash killed two more people.
$14.1M
Ventura County jury verdict
90%
Fault assigned to the State of California
6
Prior crashes on the same 0.2-mile stretch of curve
On the morning of September 18, 2011, our client's husband was riding with a small group from his Christian motorcycle club on State Route 33 near Ojai, a scenic but demanding stretch of mountain highway. The posted speed limit was 55 miles per hour. As he came through a curve, a vehicle traveling the opposite direction crossed the centerline directly into his path. The head-on collision killed both him and the other driver, a 19-year-old, instantly at the scene. The curve was not an ordinary bend. Its radius decreased sharply as drivers moved through it, tightening from roughly 630 feet at the entry to roughly 230 feet by the midpoint, a geometry that surprises drivers who enter at a speed appropriate for the initial, gentler curvature and then find the road tightening faster than expected. This kind of decreasing-radius curve is a well-recognized hazard in highway engineering, and the standard response is to post specific advisory signage warning drivers to reduce speed before entering. At the time of this crash, no such warning sign existed at this location.
Our client's husband was a practicing attorney, an intake lawyer at his firm, and a devoted husband and father to three children. He was also a lifelong member of a Christian motorcycle riding community, and he was riding with fellow club members on the morning he was killed. He and the other rider died instantly at the scene of the collision. His widow, our client, was left to raise their three children alone and to carry forward the case that would eventually hold the State of California accountable for the hazard that took her husband's life.
A single missing warning sign rarely tells the whole story. What drove both liability and damages was the volume of evidence showing Caltrans already knew this exact stretch of roadway was dangerous long before this crash: six prior accidents at the same 0.2-mile stretch across the preceding four years, internal Caltrans reports from 2001 through 2005 identifying the curve as hazardous, and a maintenance supervisor's own diagram marked with a handwritten note referencing multiple deaths. The defense raised three principal arguments, and each was answered directly.
Caltrans argued its internal accident-tracking database, the Traffic Accident Surveillance and Analysis System, showed no qualifying notice. That database was shown to be up to two years out of date, undermining any claim that it reflected the State's actual knowledge at the relevant time.
Caltrans argued that millions of drivers navigate the state's highways safely every day. That applies the wrong legal test, because the question under California law is not whether most drivers avoid a hazard but whether the specific condition created a substantial risk of injury to those using the roadway with due care.
The defense challenged the reliability of witness speed estimates. Human perception of a vehicle's speed during a sudden, split-second emergency, typically under half a second of observation, is inherently limited, a principle recognized under California's sudden emergency doctrine, and one the jury credited by assigning only 10 percent of fault to the other decedent.
During trial, defense counsel referenced matters the court had ruled inadmissible. The court struck the improper argument and admonished counsel in front of the jury. Rather than seek a mistrial, which would have cost our client years of further delay, the improper argument was addressed directly in closing, trusting the jury to recognize it for what it was.
The liability case was built around Government Code section 835, which allows recovery against a public entity when a dangerous condition of public property, combined with the entity's actual or constructive notice of that condition, causes an injury. Caltrans's own internal accident history and hazard reports across a full decade before this crash provided overwhelming evidence of notice, undercutting any argument that the State was caught unaware by a hazard it could not reasonably have anticipated. There is a catch families need to understand immediately. California's Government Claims Act imposes a strict six-month deadline to file an administrative claim against a public entity like Caltrans, far shorter than the two-year deadline that applies to most private defendants. Missing this deadline can permanently bar an otherwise valid claim, so time is critical after any highway crash involving a state or local roadway.
In September 2015, a Ventura County jury, presided over by Judge Kevin DeNoce, returned a $14.1 million verdict against the State of California. The jury apportioned 90 percent of fault to the State for failing to warn drivers about a known dangerous curve, and 10 percent of fault to the other decedent, whose vehicle crossed the centerline. Warning signs were finally installed at the curve, but only after this crash killed two more people. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The Homampour Law Firm handles wrongful death cases against government entities on a contingency fee basis, advancing the costs of the case, so families pay nothing unless there is a recovery.
The breakdowns below cover Government Code 830.8 sign immunity and its trap door exception, obtaining the Caltrans records that prove notice, using human factors science to defeat speed and fault defenses, and trial strategy against a State defendant.
Sign immunity under Section 830.8
Proving Caltrans notice
We try catastrophic and wrongful death cases against government defendants as counsel or co-counsel and pay statutory referral fees.
Refer a caseOur client's husband was killed when another vehicle crossed the centerline on a decreasing-radius curve on State Route 33 near Ojai that had no warning signage despite a documented history of prior crashes. Both riders died at the scene. A Ventura County jury found the State of California 90 percent at fault for failing to warn drivers about the known hazard.
Discovery uncovered six prior accidents at the same 0.2-mile stretch of highway over the preceding four years, internal Caltrans reports from 2001 through 2005 identifying the curve as hazardous, and a maintenance supervisor's own diagram of the location marked with a handwritten note referencing multiple deaths.
California's Government Claims Act generally requires an administrative claim to be filed within six months of the injury or death, far shorter than the two-year deadline for claims against private defendants, so acting quickly after a highway crash involving a state or local roadway is essential.
