San Francisco Injury Lawyer Blog

The Threat of Home Electrical Fires

February 19, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Imagine you are out for the evening, perhaps enjoying dinner and a movie. You drive home and begin to notice emergency vehicles as you approach your neighborhood. As you draw closer, your fears are realized when you see your home ablaze. Fires can cause financial damages, although the biggest economic costs all pale compared to the threat of injury or death (imagine how the fear would grow if you had left your child at home). In this post, we’ll discuss one particular type of fire, electrical fires, and discuss the importance of prevention as well as the services our Oakland fire injury lawyer can provide when tragedy does occur.

Antioch Fire Claims Home

On Monday night, as reported in the Oakland Tribune, fire erupted at a home on the 5100 block of Furlong Way in Antioch. Neighbors alerted officials to the blaze around 9:45 P.M. as fire engulfed both floors of a 22 year-old, two-story, suburban home. Fire Marshal Lewis Broschard said that the fire threatened to spread to a neighboring home, but a team of eighteen firefighters got it under control by 10:24 P.M. The home’s residents appeared to be out when the fire started, which may explain the size of the fire and how it went undetected until it was fairly large. No injuries occurred and damage estimates were not available at the time of the report.

Examining the Stalled Case Against Firefighter Michael Quinn and the Role of the Burden of Proof

February 17, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

It has been seven-and-a-half months since 49 year-old motorcyclist Jack Frazier was badly injured in an alleged hit-and-run, but the nature of criminal charges remains uncertain. It is a debate that involved important questions about the quality of evidence (was the breathalyzer accurate?) and the process of investigation (why does the investigation into a firefighter seem different than that against a typical civilian?). We don’t know the underlying truth, but we believe it is also an opportunity to remind readers of a key difference between civil and criminal law: the standard of proof. This difference is critical to our work as your San Francisco personal injury law firm and explains why we can bring civil claims even when criminal claims failed.

The Basic Facts Alleged in Frazier’s Death

According to allegations, revisited in an article in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Frazier was severely injured on June 29, 2013 when a fire truck driven by San Francisco firefighter Michael Quinn plowed into his motorcycle at the intersection of Fifth and Howard. Quinn left the scene and was seen downing water at a local bar before returning to the station two hours later. From the start, reports said Quinn had a blood alcohol count of 0.13 when he arrived back at the station, well above the 0.08 DUI level and a violation of the Fire Department’s zero tolerance policy for drinking on duty.

Annoying and Dangerous: Driver Who Misuse Exit Lanes to Pass Traffic

February 14, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

We all have our driving pet peeves from drivers who leave their turn signals on for miles to drivers who seem incapable of parking within the lines and instead take up two parking spots (inevitably during a time when few spots are available. While some pet peeves are mostly annoying nuisances, others can also be major road hazards that put offending driver and everyone around them at risk. Drivers who use the exit lane to speed past traffic are not only annoying, they are dangerous and their habit can lead to serious accidents. Our San Jose accident attorney is dedicated to helping people injured by improper passing attempts, a behavior that is always frustrating and sometimes deadly.

Misuse of Exit Lanes on the Rise in Bay Area

Exit lane misuse in the Bay Area inspired a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News. The author noted that drivers using exit lanes to zip past traffic and then trying to make their way back into the travel lanes is not a new problem, but it is one that seems to be on the increase along with a general rise in traffic in the region. It is an issue that inspires calls to the paper’s Roadshow columnist and one the California Highway Patrol (“CHP”) agrees happens far too frequently.

S.F.’s Van Ness Avenue’s Reputation for Peril Worsens as Another Pedestrian is Struck, Killed by Motor Vehicle

February 13, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

When statistics suggest the evidence of a pattern, it is usually noteworthy enough for those interested in the subject matter to pay attention. But when the pattern involves a really life-and-death matter such as pedestrian safety, action as much as attention is required. And that, San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod would point out, is what is called for in the city by the bay in the wake of yet another pedestrian death on Van Ness Avenue.

According to KTVU News, a 35-year-old man lost his life at about 12:55 a.m. Wednesday near Van Ness and Pacific avenues when a motorist slammed into the man, abandoned his vehicle and then walked away from the scene. The police pronounced the pedestrian who was struck by the automobile dead at the scene and officers took the motorist whose car had hit him into custody. The motorist was booked into jail on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter, leaving the scene of an accident and on a misdemeanor warrant.

It is bad enough that the man who died Wednesday represented San Francisco’s fourth pedestrian fatality of 2014 – there were 21 pedestrian fatalities in the city in 2013, the most since 2007 – but perhaps just as troublesome is the fact that three of those four deaths occurred on Van Ness Avenue. In addition, there have been 84 accidents involving pedestrians on that street between 2008 and 2013. A major six-lane thoroughfare, Van Ness Avenue’s reputation as a dangerous street to cross is so notorious that some have dubbed it “Van Mess Avenue.”

While Van Ness Avenue is not the only dangerous street for pedestrians to cross in San Francisco – 19th Avenue, among others, has also earned a reputation as a deadly street to navigate – it certainly has been getting more than its share of bad press lately. And, since the street passes right by City Hall as well as some of the city’s cultural landmarks, it stands to reason that at least a few city officials have noticed the carnage.

However, it seems as though official awareness of the tragic circumstances on Van Ness Avenue has not necessarily translated into a substantive solution to the problem, or at least a solution that is in the works. Some yet-to-be-adopted plans that have been floated include ladder-style painting of crosswalks that are more visible to motorists.

“The design process takes too long,” said San Francisco Supervisor Scott Weiner, commenting on the steps needed to make Van Ness Avenue and other streets safer for pedestrians. “The public process takes too long. Everything takes too long. And it’s just completely broken.”

Another plan that has been on the city’s drawing board since last September is to institute a rapid transit bus line down the center of Van Ness Avenue. That measure, traffic experts have said, would lessen congestion and make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street. Unfortunately, the express bus corridor is not slated to be completed for another four years.
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The (Dangerous) Streets of San Francisco and the Role of the City in Pedestrian and Cyclist Injuries

February 10, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

The problem of pedestrian and cyclist accidents in San Francisco is a topic all-too-familiar to readers of this blog. As a San Francisco personal injury law firm, our team is always focused on the “Why?” This question is part of our client representation, but it is also part of our commitment to prevention. We want to make the fabled Streets of San Francisco safer for all travelers; a key piece of this effort is identifying common factors in previous accidents. We are particularly concerned when this examination leads to the conclusion that the city and dangerous roads may be partly to blame.

Statistics Point to High-Injury Corridors that See a Disproportionate Share of Serious Accidents

As noted in a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, the city has spent time and directed funds toward the problem of pedestrian and cyclist accidents, but the threat continues and many suggest a failure to follow through with planed proposals is a key part of the problem. The spike in pedestrian deaths in late 2013 has continued into 2014, including the death of a pedestrian in the Parkside neighborhood last week. While driver behavior is obviously a major cause of dangerous accidents, statistic reveal that a mere 6 percent of San Francisco streets see a whopping 60 percent of auto collisions in which a pedestrian is killed or seriously hurt. Likewise, 5.2% of the city’s street miles can be deemed “high-injury corridors” since they see more than half of pedestrian injuries and deaths.

San Bruno to CPUC: Stop Dragging Your Feet on Disclosure of Public Records

February 7, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

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It has been three years and five months since the catastrophic gas line explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, injured 66 others and devastated a neighborhood. Bay Area personal injury attorney Gregory J. Brod is among those people who would hope that the government agencies responsible for oversight of the disaster and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the company that caused it, would be forthcoming with sharing germane public records. But judging by a lawsuit that was filed this week, the key agency in question, the California Public Utilities Commission, is not moving fast enough for the city at the center of the Sept. 9, 2010, conflagration.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the city of San Bruno filed a lawsuit in San Mateo Superior Court on Tuesday against the CPUC seeking to force the agency to release public records on the explosion. The city is demanding that the CPUC release the documents in order to comply with the California Public Records Act as well as four separate requests that it has made for documents pertaining to the CPUC’s deliberations on the fine it contemplated against PG&E.

San Bruno officials believe that the documents will detail improper conduct at the CPUC regarding the fine, which has not yet been imposed, as well as a too-cozy relationship between the agency and the utility it is supposed to regulate.

“We believe the PUC is deliberately withholding information that would embarrass the agency,” said San Bruno City Manager Connie Jackson. “This is an issue of accountability and transparency.”

San Bruno Mayor Jim Ruane was particularly concerned about the relationship between the CPUC and PG&E.

“We are concerned the leadership of the CPUC is in the pocket of the utility company it is supposed to regulate,” Ruane said Tuesday at a news conference on the steps of the courthouse after the lawsuit was filed. “Our lawsuit calls for full transparency so that the people of San Bruno and the citizens of California can be confident about the integrity of this penalty process against PG&E.

And San Bruno City Attorney Marc Zafferano posed this interesting question when he complained, “Ten months after making a series of public records requests, the CPUC has refused to comply, leading us to question what the agency is trying to hide.”
The CPUC’s response as to why it has not released the records: It’s been “very busy” and would respond “when it had free time.”

More specifically, according to the San Francisco Examiner, the CPUC says that it has the right to withhold the documents under the deliberative process privilege exemption of the state Public Records Act, which was imposed by the California Supreme Court in 1991. The Supreme Court ruled that “the key question in every case is whether disclosure of the materials would expose an agency’s decision-making process in such a way as to discourage candid discussion with the agency and thereby undermine the agency’s ability to perform its functions.”
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Use of Smart Cards Could Have Foiled Hackers at Target, Neiman Marcus

February 6, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

The news about security breaches at well-known retailers and other businesses keeps rolling in – after the mega-breach at Target, there were revelations about identity theft at Neiman Marcus as well as major hotels in the United States. The fact that millions of card holders’ personal information may have been compromised due to the various schemes is distressing enough, but another fact that San Francisco personal injury attorney Gregory J. Brod finds troubling is that technology already exists that could have prevented much of the theft.

The problem at Target and the other businesses that experienced security breaches is that they have been employing magnetic strip cards to process their transactions with customers – technology that dates from the 1960s – and the magnetic strip cards are easy for thieves to hack. Among the few remaining countries where credit and debit cards still depend on a magnetic strip to store and transmit account information, a group that unfortunately includes the United States, hackers have found a haven.

As opposed to magnetic strip cards, chip-based “smart cards,” which have an embedded microchip within them that requires a personal identification number to access the encrypted personal information, are much more difficult for thieves to hack. Anti-fraud legislation and government mandates have driven companies to adopt chip-based cards in Europe and Asia, respectively.

The ramification of the United States not having adopted chip-based cards while 80 other countries has been profound. Indeed, according to Forbes, the United States represented 27 percent of global credit card payment but 47 percent of all fraud in 2012.

The experience of having undergone a massive security breach apparently was enough for Target to announce that it was speeding up implementation of a chip system in its proprietary “REDcards.” Interestingly enough, according to Benzinga, Target as well as other retailers have already adopted smart cards in Canada, where losses from card-skimming schemes dropped 72 percent between 2008 and 2012. In Europe, identity theft has been 67 percent lower over the last nine years.

Companies that process credit card transactions such as Visa and MasterCard, eager to stem further losses, have set an October 2015 deadline for banks and retailers to adopt smart cards. And the incentive for getting banks and retailers to switch all boils down to the issue of liability. That’s because whereas right now, the bank that issued a card usually absorbs the cost of fraud, but after the October 2015 deadline, any merchant without a chip reader will be required to absorb the cost if they process a magnetic strip transaction from a card that is supposed to have a microchip.

And the reason why merchants and banks have been slow to adopt smart cards revolves around a simple issue: money. That’s because banks will have to spend more money to produce the more expensive smart cards and merchants will have to spend money to replace swipe machines with smart card readers.
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California Hit-and-Run Law and the Paths to Compensation

February 3, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

As a Sacramento injury lawyer, Attorney Greg Brod knows that every car accident has its own unique story. Some stories are particularly upsetting, including those cases that include a hit-and-run driver. Often the police are able to identify the driver and each has his or her own “excuse” for leaving the scene (“I panicked,” “I didn’t realize I hit anyone,” “I planned to call for help when I reached my destination”). It is extraordinarily rare to hear an excuse that truly explains the behavior that not only violates the law but also violates the basic tenets of community and compassion.

Driver Caught After “Double” Hit-and-Run Claims Life

In an accident detailed in The San Francisco Chronicle, a driver appears to have tried to leave the scene of not one but two highway accidents within the span of only about five miles. According to the California Highway Patrol, 20 year-old Damarea D.W. Evans was speeding when he rear-ended a 2004 Mazda 3 in the course of a passing attempt on I-80 west in Solano County at around 6:20 A.M. on Friday. Evans drove away from the crash, which did not result in any injury.

With Two Fatalities in One Month, Caltrain Is Off to Grim Start in 2014

January 31, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Bay Area rail commuters have several train networks to choose from to move about the region, and Caltrain undoubtedly ranks as one of the better known systems. But the train service that runs from San Francisco through the San Mateo Peninsula and on to the San Jose area received attention in January it would rather not have, as there were two separate incidents that resulted in fatalities. With such a tragic start to 2014, our Bay Area train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod is among those people who are asking questions about train safety in our region.

And here is the most sobering thought to work with as a starting point for asking questions about rail safety: Thirteen people died in all of 2013 when they were struck by a Caltrain vehicle, making the two such deaths in January 2014, one on Monday, Jan. 20, in Santa Clara, and the other on Friday, Jan. 31 in Redwood City, such an unsettling statistic.

The first rail fatality of 2014 occurred on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday when, according to the San Jose Mercury News, a Good Samaritan named Philip Scholz died while trying to save the life of another person. Scholz, who was waiting for a train ride home while at the raised platform at the Caltrain Santa Clara station, saw another man down on the tracks. He then dropped his backpack, lay down on his belly and reached for the other individual on the tracks. Unfortunately, a commuter train rushing through the station at 50 to 70 mph did not stop and slammed into the two men at about 5:30 p.m., killing Scholz. The identity of the other man, who survived the incident, has not been released.

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Surveillance footage of the incident revealed that Scholz was looking at the man on the tracks, perhaps even talking to him before he decided to attempt to pull the man to safety. However, it is still not known why the man was on the tracks in the first place, nor how he was able to survive the collision with the Caltrain.

In the second railroad tracks fatality of this year, which occurred at about 6:15 a.m. on the last day of the month, a woman was killed when she was struck by a Caltrain at the Redwood City station. As in the case of the tragedy in Santa Clara earlier in the month, the Caltrain that killed the woman was a fast-moving express train that was not scheduled to stop at the station on its way north to San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the circumstances of the woman’s death are under investigation and her identity has not been released.
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Oakland Law Firm Fights for Victims of On-Campus Sexual Assault

January 31, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

College should be a time of learning and growth, an opportunity for teens to grow into young men and women. College campuses should be a safe space for this transformation. Sadly, too often the danger of college sexual assault hangs over young women (and young men too, while we will primarily refer to female victims in this post, we recognize that men can also be victims of sexual assault) throughout their university years. Our Oakland assault attorney is committed to helping the victims and holding all responsible parties accountable for these crimes and the environment that allows them to occur.

UC Berkeley Student Reports Sexual Assault in Campus Housing Unit

Police report that a female student attending UC Berkeley was sexually assaulted last weekend in a campus housing unit located in Albany. As detailed in The Oakland Tribune, university police were called to a hospital on Sunday to initiate an investigation into the incident. The victim told officers that a male acquaintance had invited her to an off-campus bar before taking her to an Albany Village apartment where he assaulted her sexually. Police say the suspect, who has not yet been arrested, is a 40 year old Hispanic male, approximately 5’7″ and 170 pounds.