$4,350,000
In March 2017, Attorneys Arash Homampour and Scott Boyer settled a challenging liability Premise Liability case for $4.35 million. The case initially appeared to be an ordinary but tragic Motor Vehicle versus Pedestrian accident. The Plaintiff, a 36 year old student, was riding his skateboard on an access road of a school when he was struck by a car causing horrific injuries: near amputation of his right arm with resultant reattachment surgery, finger amputation, multiple other surgeries, post-traumatic stress disorder and severe emotional distress.
Another law firm sought out the Homampour team to help with the case and a premise liability claim was brought against the school for maintaining an unsafe premises. We contended that the school negligently designed and constructed a trash bin enclosure so that it obstructed the view for students entering the access road from the walkway ramp and vehicles traveling down the access road. We established that defendant school should have been aware through reasonable inspections of the dangerous condition created by the obstruction and failed to take any corrective action or warn of the dangers.
Defendant school fought back arguing that the location was safe, there was no ordinance requiring a crosswalk or warning sign in the access road and there had been no similar accidents in the area since the trash bin enclosure was constructed in 2003. Defendant school contended that plaintiff was exclusively (or comparatively) at fault for the incident by knowingly riding his skateboard down a ramp, in violation of school policy, into a known parking lot/access road area without first determining whether there was any danger from oncoming traffic. Defendant also contended that the other driver was responsible for failing to keep a proper look out. Defendants also contended that the trash bin enclosure was open and obvious and the absence of any prior similar accidents evidenced the alleged configuration did not constitute a dangerous condition. Plaintiff had both driven and ridden his skateboard in the access road numerous times before the incident.
Despite these challenges and through aggressive and creative lawyering, the Homampour Team was able to obtain this phenomenal result for this client.
