$23 million dangerous condition of public property settlement secured by Danielle Lincors and Arash Homampour of The Homampour Law Firm and Michael Geoola of B & D Law Group APLC. Nothing less than full justice in a highly contested liability and damages case where a young girl was struck by a driver in a City of Long Beach crosswalk. We can say confidently that this is an outlier result that perhaps only a handful of lawyers in this state can secure. Why? Officers cited the driver as the primary collision factor. Most attorneys would and did pass on this case. But attorney Michael Geoola knew something might be wrong with the crosswalk after he went to the scene. Mr. Geoola filed the necessary government claims and lawsuit and after the first layer of discovery showed he was onto something, he knew the case would require vast resources and expertise in dangerous condition and he brought in our firm, as this area of the law is our specialty. Defendant City of Long Beach denied liability and contended that the Driver, Plaintiff, and Plaintiff’s mother were all at fault. Defendant contended that it was entitled to design immunity and that there was no notice or knowledge that that crosswalk was dangerous. As to liability, Plaintiff established a discrepancy in the design plans relied on by Defendant in that one of the plans was unsigned and they did not match what was built. Plaintiff also proved that Defendant City of Long Beach knew long before the incident, that the crosswalk was a dangerous condition, despite not having significant accident history. Plaintiff proved that Defendant City knew there was a high volume of pedestrians crossing at the crosswalk, that some drivers tended to speed in this area, that drivers did not always stop for pedestrians while they crossed, and that drivers do not expect pedestrians to be crossing at this location. As to damages, Plaintiff suffered a traumatic brain injury, but Defendant heavily disputed the extent Plaintiff’s injuries as she appeared to be a normal functioning adolescent engaged in age-appropriate activities such as playing at the park, going to school and making Tik Tok videos. Moreover, Plaintiff had pre-existing developmental delays, borderline intelligence levels and behavioral issues. Despite these common defenses in TBI cases, we established that this young girl suffered significant injuries that would affect her for life which justified the settlement obtained.
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