Settlement for Pedestrian Struck by Commercial Van at Dawn: When the Police Report Blames the Injured Person
Adamson Ahdoot LLP secured a $3,000,000 settlement on behalf of our client, a 22-year-old gardener who sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, permanent facial paralysis, and open fractures to both legs when a commercial utility van struck him on a frontage road alongside Interstate 10 in Riverside County, California. The California Highway Patrol cited our client, not the driver. This is the story of how careful investigation changed that narrative.
A Flat Tire Before Sunrise
In April 2024, at about 5:45 a.m., our client and a coworker were driving west on Interstate 10 toward a landscaping job when their vehicle got a flat tire. They pulled onto the freeway shoulder. With traffic passing at highway speed a few feet away, they decided the shoulder was not a safe place to wait. They climbed over the concrete barrier to the sand shoulder of the parallel frontage road and called for roadside assistance.
It was civil twilight, the period before sunrise when the sky is already light. The morning was clear and dry. Our client was on the sand shoulder, talking on his phone while he waited, with his back to oncoming traffic.
A landscaping company’s utility van, driven by an employee on his way to work, was traveling east on the frontage road. The van struck our client at 49 miles per hour. He was thrown onto the hood and through the windshield. Debris from the collision was scattered across more than 130 feet of roadway.
The Injuries and the Long Road Through Treatment
Our client arrived at the trauma center unconscious and was intubated on arrival. His injuries involved nearly every system of the body:
- A severe traumatic brain injury, including bleeding around the brain and a contusion to the brainstem. He has lasting deficits in memory and attention, chronic headaches, balance problems, and insomnia.
- Complete and permanent paralysis of the right side of his face. He cannot close his right eye and has been referred for facial reanimation surgery.
- Injuries to several cranial nerves, affecting his vision and voice, including double vision, a drooping eyelid, and paralysis of one vocal cord.
- Multiple skull and facial fractures and an injury to the carotid artery that requires ongoing monitoring.
- Open fractures of both lower legs, treated with emergency surgery to place rods in both tibias. The left tibia failed to heal and required a second surgery using bone graft from his own hip. More than a year later, imaging showed the fracture still had not healed.
- A liver laceration, rib fractures, and collapsed lungs.
He spent roughly five weeks in intensive care and trauma units across two hospital stays, followed by a specialized cranial nerve evaluation and, nearly two years after the crash, a month of inpatient brain-injury rehabilitation. He was discharged still requiring around-the-clock supervision. He has since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder.
Before the crash, he worked full time as a gardener. He was unable to work for more than a year. When he did return, it was to a lower-paying dishwashing job, where his employer documented that he forgot to clock in and forgot assigned tasks.
The Citation That Nearly Defined the Case
When the CHP investigated, the only account of what happened came from the van’s driver. Our client was intubated and on his way to surgery. The driver told officers that he had seen a person “pacing around” on the shoulder as he approached but could not say how close that person was when he came into the roadway. The driver did not slow, sound his horn, or steer away.
CHP cited our client for failing to yield as a pedestrian. The report also coded the driver for inattention, but the citation is what the defense built its case on. Their position was that a pedestrian stepped in front of a van in low light, that everything happened “all at once,” and that our client was responsible for his own injuries.
Under California’s comparative fault rules, that argument matters. If a jury assigns a percentage of fault to the injured person, the recovery is reduced by that percentage. A citation issued at the scene carries weight with jurors, even when it was written without hearing from the person cited. Left unchallenged, it could have cut the case’s value dramatically.
Why It Matters: Testing the Driver’s Story Against Physics
We did not accept the citation as the final word. We retained a human-factors expert to conduct a visibility study, recreating the lighting conditions on the same road at the same time of day and year.
The study established that a pedestrian on that shoulder was recognizable as a person from approximately 800 feet away. At 49 miles per hour, that is about 11 seconds of visibility. Even on the most conservative assumptions, the driver had a clear view of our client from 500 feet, roughly seven seconds.
Seven to eleven seconds is not “all at once.” It is enough time to slow down, to sound a horn, to move to the far side of the lane. The driver’s own admission that he saw our client “pacing” confirmed he had noticed him with time to spare. The vehicle’s event data recorder showed no meaningful reduction in speed before impact.
The study also reframed who our client was on that road. He was not a jaywalker. He was a stranded motorist who had made a reasonable judgment that the freeway shoulder was dangerous and had moved to what he believed was a safer place to wait. Under California law, comparative fault is a question for a jury, and no witness other than the driver saw our client’s movements before impact. We contended that the citation reflected one person’s self-serving account, not the evidence.
Holding the Employer Accountable
The driver was on his way to work in a company van, acting within the course and scope of his employment. Under California’s doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer is responsible for the negligent driving of its employees on the job. We also pursued the company directly for negligent entrustment, hiring, training, and supervision, contending that a commercial driver operating a company vehicle should be held to a professional standard of attention.
Proving a Lifetime of Need
With liability contested, the damages case had to be unassailable. We retained a physical medicine and rehabilitation physician to prepare a life care plan projecting our client’s medical needs over his remaining life expectancy of 53 years. The plan totaled more than $15.2 million, with the largest component being home assistive care. It also accounted for medication, headache management, psychological treatment, therapy, and the facial and orthopedic surgeries still ahead of him.
The medical evidence held up under scrutiny. The defense’s own retained neuro-ophthalmologist confirmed the permanent right-eye deficits. Their orthopedic examiner acknowledged the unhealed leg fracture. And while the defense neuropsychologist argued that our client’s cognitive problems reflected an adjustment disorder rather than a lasting brain injury, that opinion had to contend with objective imaging of a brainstem contusion and consistent findings from a treating neurologist, the inpatient rehabilitation team, and a forensic psychologist.
A Young Man Starting Over
Our client was 22 when he was struck, one day after his birthday. He had come to the United States and built a life around steady physical work. That life is gone. He lives with a face that no longer moves on one side, an eye that will not close, legs that have not fully healed, and a memory that does not hold onto the day’s tasks. He requires supervision. The recovery in this case was measured not against what he had earned, but against what he will need for the next five decades.
Lessons for Anyone Cited After a Crash
- A citation is not a verdict. Officers at the scene often have only one side of the story, particularly when the injured person cannot speak. Citations can be challenged with evidence.
- Comparative fault is a jury question in California. The defense will try to shift blame to the injured person. The answer is investigation, not concession.
- Physical evidence outlasts memory. Event data recorders, debris fields, and scientific visibility studies establish what happened in ways that testimony alone cannot.
- Commercial drivers and their employers carry heightened responsibility. When a company vehicle causes an injury, the company itself is often accountable.
- Damages must be proven for a lifetime, not a billing cycle. A life care plan turns future needs into evidence.
About Adamson Ahdoot LLP
Adamson Ahdoot LLP is a personal injury law firm based in Los Angeles, serving clients throughout California. Our attorneys handle pedestrian accident cases, commercial vehicle collisions, and traumatic brain injury matters requiring rigorous liability investigation, expert collaboration, and comprehensive documentation of lifetime care needs.
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