The Reeves Law Group

All his life, Joseph Richardson was used to making sure that his loved ones were safe. His brother remembers how he always watched out for him when they were kids, protecting him from neighborhood bullies. On Monday evening, all of Richardson’s protective instincts would be called again to the fore, this time to protect his daughter. As usual, he didn’t flinch. The “bully” here was – who else? - a drunk driver, and in the couple of seconds before Richardson died, he was able to raise his 4-year-old daughter to safety. He died from injuries sustained in the crash, while his daughter, Kaniyah, survived.

The father and daughter duo, Chicago residents, were walking to a McDonalds restaurant, when a Chevy Cavalier lost control and jumped the curb. The car careened towards them, and in the split second that he had to act, Richardson managed to raise Kaniyah to safety. It was too late to save himself, however. The car slammed against him with full impact, pinning him against the wrought iron fence. He died instantly. Kaniyah is listed as being in critical condition, and is at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

The man driving the car was 32-year-old Angelo Thomas. He has been charged with two felony counts of aggravated driving and driving under the influence. He has also been charged with driving without a valid license and without insurance.

Thomas seems to have missed the bus when he was required to take traffic safety classes. He was way over the alcohol limit when the accident took place. According to the results of toxicology reports, his blood alcohol limit was .135, well above the legal limit of .08. If that want enough, he had also been swigging beer at the time of the crash.

A bond of $900,000 has been set for Thomas.

Richardson has three kids who have now been left fatherless, thanks to Angelo Thomas. His family will obviously need support at this time of need. Calling for Thomas’ head is all very well, but this man wrecked a family apart and he deserves punishment that will pinch.

This is one of those cases where you thank our justice system for civil lawsuits. With just two counts of aggravated driving under him, there’s a fair chance Thomas will get out of jail – if he is convicted – in a few years time. A few years in jail with murderers, rapists, and all kinds of other charming personalities is hardly a fitting way to deal with drunken drivers like Angelo Thomas. A civil lawsuit would, on the other hand, not only help Richardson’s now fatherless children and his wife recover their lives back, but also financially cripple Thomas to a point where he is forced to sober up.

You could look at Danny Espinoza and feel a trifle sorry for him. The man is paralyzed from his neck down, and can’t eat, sit up, or do any of the things we take for granted without help. All he does all day is lie in bed, being fed and cared for by his caregiver and his mother. Until you realize that this man killed a woman taking part in what was most probably a street race.

Danny is waiting to be sentenced in a vehicular manslaughter case arising from his accident two years ago that killed 69-year-old Dorothy Anne Walter, and left the 25-year-old engineer paralyzed, due to a spinal cord injury.

On the evening of March 5, 2006, Danny, a Bakersfield resident, celebrated his birthday with his parents, and then left for home. He was in his Ford Mustang, and was stopped at a red light. Waiting at the traffic signal was a Porsche and a Corvette. Although the police haven’t been able to piece together the exact chain of events, this much is clear. When the light tuned green, the three cars, including Danny’s Mustang, revved up their speed, and sped off down the road. The police suspect and the prosecution claims, that this was the beginning of a street race. Danny’s car reached 90 mph. Coming up in the opposite direction was Walters. As they approached, Danny lost control of his car and hit a tree. He then careened across the lanes and hit Walter’s car. The damage to her car was so extensive; she had to be extricated by paramedic personnel using the Jaws of Life. She was taken to a hospital, where she died about an hour later.

As for Danny, he ended up in his wrecked car with the seat belt wound tightly around his neck. His heart stopped, and he spent the next month in a hospital, oblivious to the world around him in a deep coma. When he emerged from the coma a month later, he remembered nothing of the accident and nothing of at least 4 months prior to the accident. He was diagnosed as quadriplegic because of his severe spinal cord injuries, and now relies on round the clock care for his needs. He uses special blow and suck devices to use his computer mouse, play World of Warcraft games and chat on forums.

This is where you begin to stop feeling sorry for Espinoza.

Dorothy Walters can’t go chatting on online forums. She can’t play World of Warcraft, even if she wanted to. She can’t chat with her family, can’t hug them, can’t hold them, will never be able to say goodbye to them the way everybody does, and all this because Danny Espinoza took it on himself to use his car as a weapon, and the street as his battleground. We can’t feel sorry for every person who gets injured in an accident that they cause themselves by their stupidity. That’s like saying a homicidal maniac can go on a shooting rampage, then shoot himself in the foot and expect sympathy and special treatment.

The prosecution and Walter’s family has been vocal about seeking the full six-year sentence for Danny. We hope they get their wish.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

A long time criminal investigator with the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office became the victim of a drunk driving accident on Thursday night. 53-year-old Laura Cleaves of Santa Ynez died at the scene from fatal injures sustained at the crash.

Cleaves was in her car on Highway 154, when her vehicle was struck by a Mercedes Benz driven by 22-year-old Ashley Johnigan. According to reports, Ashley had just been pulled over by cops on suspicion of drunk driving. As the cops pulled up behind the Mercedes and got out of their vehicle to talk to the woman, she sped off towards Highways 154. Just a few minutes later, the Mercedes struck the Dodge that was carrying Cleaves. According to the California Highway Patrol, Ashley illegally crossed the yellow lanes and struck Laura’s car head on.

After hitting Cleaves, Ashley reportedly drove on and hit a Ford. The driver of that car and Ashley suffered minor injuries.

Laura Cleaves was a highly respected supervising investigator at the Santa Barbara County district attorney’s Lompoc office. In a career that began in 1984, she served as a district attorneys office investigator, and dealt with complex cases that involved transgressions by public officials and theft. She had several famous cases to her credit. It was she, for instance, who did much of the groundwork that led to the conviction of Sylvia Vasquez, the day care provider who ran a foster home full of abuse and neglect. She was known for her dogged pursuit of cases that even federal law enforcement agencies had given up on. She remained to the end a devoted wife and mother. Her presence at the DA’s office will be sorely missed.

This was not a woman who, in any way, deserved to go out like this. Laura had many years of service left in her, and should have had the privilege of seeing her career through to retirement. She deserved to have the peace of a happy retired life spending time with the family – time that she missed when she was so nobly serving the county. Instead, she has gone before her time because a rash 22-year-old either didn’t listen to or didn’t care for the first lesson of driving on the streets – don’t drink and drive.

As we write this, Ashley Jernigan has been let out on bail. This is a woman who needs to be locked up for her own good, if not for others. She’s just managed to cause a horrific crash and a death, besides minor injuries to another driver and all in a night’s work. At the age of 22, she already has one death to her credit. If the investigations are not dealt with properly and Ms Johnigan goes unpunished, there will be more chances for her to cause more injuries and harm to others.

The California State Attorney General’s Office will be handling the investigation into the matter.

Patients at Texas’ psychiatric hospitals face a grim reality, and an even grimmer future. Tales of abuse have been rampant across the state’s 10 mental hospitals, and as many as 70 employees have been fired in the last three years alone for abuse of mental patients. Apart from the ones who have had their services terminated, hundreds more have been suspended for abuse of patients. Many of the abuse cases are sexual in nature, while overmedication, restraining with padlocks and plain simple negligence are also widely reported.

According to an analysis by Dallas Morning News, abuse has even taken on the form of violence and beatings. One patient was manhandled by an employee, and dragged by his hair and feet. Another female patient was sexually abused by an employee.

The state’s mental hospitals, as well as the juvenile centers and disabled people’s homes, are all suffering from a malaise that covers all forms of neglect and abuse. As expected, there are plenty of fingers pointing in all directions, most notably the lack of funds. State run hospitals have suffered from chronic lack of funding, insiders say, resulting in the pathetic state of the hospitals. Sadly, the first persons who get dropped from the priority list when cash begins to get tight are the mental patients and the disabled, the most vulnerable of our society. It’s a cold reality.

The abuse at the state’s mental hospitals is even more disturbing than abuse of disabled persons or juveniles because these people very rarely have a strong support system of friends and family. They are usually not in very close contact with their family. Their mental status also makes it hard for them to remain on the radar of public consciousness. Their families have in many cases given up on them because of the chronic cycles of homelessness and incarceration that these people experience. Left to the mercy of the staff, many patients are coming to the stark realization that life within these walls is far from safe and comforting. It’s in many ways crueler than the realities outside.

Mental health advocates complain of the lack of funding. Over the past few years, at least $100 million in mental health funding has been cut in the state budget.

The parents of Jason Evans are looking for reasons for their son’s death, since lack of funding is a poor excuse. The 34-year-old bipolar disorder patient was found dead at a hospital a few days after he checked himself in. The cause of death is supposedly “natural,” but his parents suspect an intentional overdose on the part of the staff.

Lack of funding is a problem across health institutions in many parts of the country, but we cannot use that as an excuse to neglect and abuse mental patients. Because workers are over stressed or over burdened is no reason to take their frustrations out on helpless patients. Many of these incidents border on torture – one patient was hit on the head with a clipboard, and then kicked repeatedly. Another was tackled to the floor and had injuries to his face. We would cause a hue and cry over the treatment of animals in this fashion – it would be shameful if we maintained a frozen silence when human beings are treated this way.

If you have a loved one who has been the victim of abuse or neglect at an assisted living facility, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

It’s a good thing there are civil lawsuits in this country for victims who have been let down by the system. One such victim, a 17-year-old girl who has had her rape allegations against a group of boys thrown out, has now filed a civil lawsuit against the boys.

The unidentified victim was gang raped by a group of De Anza College baseball players at a co-ed party held at a baseball player’s house. She was drunk at the time of the rape, and the incident only came to light when three of her friends barged into the room and found her. She was apparently unconscious and was being raped, while at least eight other men stood around and watched.

The Santa Clara District Attorney’s office spent almost a year investigating the matter, but finally came to the conclusion that there wasn’t enough evidence for criminal charges. They made the decision not to prosecute the young men, saying the evidence was too slim. It didn’t help matters that the girl didn’t remember the rape. The women who barged into the room and witnessed the accident apparently didn’t see the men’s faces.

The young men who were in the room at the time of the rape seem to have given varying accounts of what happened, ruining the DA’s case further.

The result of all this was a terse announcement by the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office that “reprehensible” behavior had taken place at a player’s home on March 3, 2007, but it was impossible to find out what exactly happened.

The teen has now filed a lawsuit accusing the nine former players and another man at the party of men of sexually assaulting her. The charges include rape, false imprisonment, and violation of her privacy. The violation of privacy charge stems from the videotapes of the rape that the perpetrators reportedly circulated among their friends.

It now stands to the civil courts to give this young girl justice. After having suffered one of the most heinous crimes that could be committed, it must be frustrating to not even have the opportunity to face your torturers in court and accuse them of the crime. While we understand the hesitation in filing criminal charges against the perpetrators because of the lack of solid evidence, it still doesn’t help the young girl to know that these men could get away with scarring her for the rest of her life. It also sends a negative message to other rape victims.

Everybody, from the investigators to the district attorney’s office, seems to agree that there was rape committed that night at the party. But the way things work, the victim will probably not have her chance at justice from a criminal court. The video that the boys made so arrogantly could prove to be their nemesis. It will probably be used in the plaintiff’s arguments when the civil lawsuit comes up for hearing.

If have been the victim of a sexual assault, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The parents of a 17-year-old boy, who was injured in a truck accident when he was 14, have been awarded a total settlement of $15.07 million by the Southern California Gas Company (Sempra). The accident involved a Sempra truck and the car in which the boy, Kyle Tilton, was riding.

The accident took place on November 2nd 2005 in Yucca Valley, California. Kyle was in a car being driven by his mother, Charlotte Tilton. His mother made a left turn at Twenty Nine Palms Highway in Joshua Tree. A Sempra truck, driven by Darryl Whitley, ran a red light and slammed into the vehicle.

The side of the car that Kyle was sitting took the full force of the accident. He suffered various injuries – including head injuries, fractured ribs, collapsed spleen and liver, and multiple pelvic factures, beside other injuries. He was unresponsive at the scene, and spent the next few days at the hospital. He was in intensive care for 8 days. His mother, Charlotte, suffered only minor injures. Kyle hasn’t completely recovered from his injuries. He continues to undergo brain rehabilitation therapy, and although his quality of life has improved, there is a long way to go before the now 17-year-old boy can hope to have a full life again.

The family bought a lawsuit against Sempras. The company fought its liability until the very first day of trial, and refused to offer a sum that could be acceptable by the family in order to settle. The matter then went to jury, and now the verdict has come back in favor of the plaintiffs. $3.57 million was awarded to Kyle for his medical expenses in the future, which are expected to be huge. A sum of $1.07 million has been paid for his future loss of earning, and $10 million has been awarded for his pain and suffering. The jury also awarded Kyle $1.34 million for his past medical expenses and $21,960 in past family services. His mother, Charlotte, who cited emotional distress at witnessing the near death for her son, also has a claim in the lawsuit. She has been given $270,000 for her pain.

Sempra insists that the only reason they allowed the case to go to trial is because they had conflict with the cost of caring for Kyle. The jury had obviously no such conflict. They have awarded the boy more than $3 million for his future medical expenses. Kyle’s parents are satisfied with the verdict, and hope to use the money to further his rehabilitation therapy so he can gain back control of his life.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The mother of a 7-year-old girl who died after collapsing at school has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the school.

Destinie Martinez was studying at Dona Ana Elementary School. She suffered from truncus arteriosus, a heart condition in which a single large blood vessel carries blood to the body and the lungs. It is characterized by shortness of breath, and the patients can suffer from high blood pressure. In many instances, heart failure can be seen. Destinie had undergone surgery for her condition, and her mother Candi Martinez, who filed the wrongful death lawsuit, had informed the authorities at the school about her daughter’s delicate medical condition.

On the morning of November 5, 2007, Destinie had been feeling unwell. Her mother sent her to school with a note asking that she be excused from physical education class. It’s not clear why the school allowed Destinie to participate in a physical activity, when the parents had made it known that she was ill, but they made her participate in physical education. Within minutes, the girl had begun to vomit, and had to be excused from the class. She was made to sit down and a few moments later she collapsed.

The school was apparently not yet done bungling. The situation called for emergency medical care, and instead of approaching it like the serious matter it was, school authorities continued with their ineptitude. They called the wrong parents to ask for permission to transfer Destinie to hospital. By the time they finally managed to get their act together and call Destinie’s parents, valuable time had been lost. She was taken to Mountain View Regional Medical Center. All efforts proved unsuccessful, and Destinie died at the hospital.

The lawsuit alleges that many errors we made in the kind of emergency response that Destinie received from the school. It also claims that she should have not been participating in physical activity.

Obviously, the school was tawdry in its response to Destinie’s condition. For now, the school has not yet responded to the lawsuit, but answers will be expected as to why the girl was allowed to be in the sun taking part in physical education class, when her mother had informed the teacher about her condition on that day.

How could precious time have been lost calling the wrong parents? How difficult can it be to have on emergency file the contact information about a child at your school who has a rare heart disorder? How many kids at the school had that disorder? Presumably not many. The authorities must have known that with a sick child in their school, there might be need for emergency medical attention some day, and they were ill-prepared. There was enough incentive for the school authorities to have been extra careful in this case. Instead, they seem to have been profoundly negligent, and a little girl has paid for it with her life.

Some things you just can’t make up. A 41-year-old man can expect to be arrested when he gets released from hospital following a crash in which he tried to drive himself and his girlfriend’s two sons down a 65-foot embankment.

Rolando Maldonado told police that the accident was just that - an accident. But the police suspected a different version of events. The man had apparently just had a fight with his girlfriend in which she threatened to leave him. Things cooled off a moment later, and he announced he was going out to the store and the boys wanted to accompany him. The mother did not have anything to suspect. But when there was no sign of Maldonado and her boys after a while, she became nervous and called him to ask when he was coming home. Upon this, the man apparently told her he wasn’t coming back, and neither were the boys.

Maldonado has presumably seen too many movies. After his conversation with the girlfriend, he went right ahead and drove his Ford Explorer off a cliff on Santiago Canyon Road in Silverado, California. Luckily the two boys – one 7 years old and the other barely 20 months old – were not seriously injured.

After the crash, Maldonado climbed out on the road and flagged down a vehicle for help. He claimed that he had pulled his Explorer over, and then when the vehicle got overheated, it slipped into gear and toppled off the cliff.

The police have found holes in his story. There is a guardrail that exists between the road and the depths. It would have been hard for this to have been an accident. From the girlfriend’s account of the conversation she had with the man a few minutes before he committed the cowardly act, it was Maldonado’s intention to kill or hurt the boys, and to kill himself.

There are no words to describe Maldonado. That he wanted to kill himself was clear. But to use kids in some sort of sick revenge game is beyond pathetic. The boys have been reunited with their mother, and Maldonado is being treated for his injuries.

We hope the children’s mother considers a civil lawsuit against him for compensation for her kids’ injuries, and their emotional trauma. She can expect heavy medical bills for the treatment, and why should she be the one to pay for his love of drama? With a settlement dangling over his head, Maldonando will think twice before he plays jilted lover again.

If you have been injured in an auto accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

There’s not going to be a way for Chaka Khan to sing her way out of this. The 10-time Grammy winner might have been able to see her 29-year-old son, Damien Holland, out of jail for the murder of a teenager in her home, but it’s time for her to loosen the purse strings, and shell out $1.3 million to the boy’s family.

Christopher Bailey was just 17 years old at the time of his murder. He had moved into Chaka Khan’s home to be able to work with Khan and her son in their studio. Damien admitted to suspecting Christopher of having an affair with his girlfriend, and on the 24th of September, 2004 Damien shot Bailey.

As it later turned out, Damien took great care to make sure that everything looked and seemed like an accident or a fight gone wrong. He told his friends to rough him up a bit, so he could look as if he had been in a fight, and he told cops that he had no intention of killing Bailey, and that the gun “accidentally” went off. That’s right. A shoulder weapon used by the US military “accidentally” went off when he was confronting the boy who he just happened to suspect of stealing his girlfriend. And when he was accidentally poking Bailey with the butt of the rifle, he didn’t really mean to kill him at all.

For Bailey’s family, Damien’s acquittal in May 2006 only added to the shock of losing their son. Their son had his face blown out with a M-16 assault rifle, and the murderer walked free. There was no poetic justice here, just a washed up singer trying everything she could to keep Damien out of jail. After the acquittal, Bailey’s father, Glen Newton, said that he believed that witnesses had not come forward to testify for fear of repercussion from the singer. He also believed that Khan herself lied about the circumstances surrounding Bailey’s death. Khan continued to maintain that the shooting was an accident, which only helped to deepen Newton’s anger and hurt. It’s easy to imagine Newton’s hurt, and his frustration at the lack of justice for his son.

Thankfully for victims in this country like Bailey, there are still civil lawsuits to turn to. Bailey’s parents sued Chaka Khan, her son and her company for wrongful death and negligence. Now a judge in Torrance has passed the right verdict. As a person in whose house a murder was committed, Chaka Khan stands financially responsible for the murder of Christopher Bailey. There’s no scope now for explanations and excuses.

Chaka Kahn won’t exactly be running off to the studios to record another hit to be able to pay off the million dollars, although this is probably not a verdict that will break her financially, but at least it sends out a clear message about her liability in the murder.

Two students who were involved in an accident at Ralston Middle School last year have filed lawsuits. The accident, which occurred on May 2 last year, occurred when Mauro Yan, a 70-year-old man driving a sport utility vehicle, rammed into a group of school children who were standing at the curb waiting for the bus. At least 13 students were injured. The SUV ended up slammed against a tree after hitting the students, and several of the victims found themselves trapped below the SUV. Luckily, there was a gap, and nobody was crushed; injuries could otherwise have been more severe.

The students suffered a range of injuries, including pelvis injuries, head lacerations, liver injuries and head injuries.

At the time, no one knew what caused the 70-year-old driver to lose control of the car. His granddaughter reportedly studied at the same school, and he had come to pick her up. She was in the car at the time of the accident.

It later came to light that the school has always had a problem with overcrowding of cars. There are no clear demarcations between the bus stops, and the school has been mentioned in Ian Wickle’s lawsuit. He mentions Yan, the school board, the city of Belmont, San Mateo County Transit District, vice principal of the school at the time of the accident and an employee of the SamTrans bus that the boys were waiting for. Ian was one of those very seriously injured by the crash. His scalp had been ripped from his head and had peeled open. Alexander Cano’s lawsuit mentioned only Mauro Yan.

The school board has been named for neglecting to put in place proper measures to safeguard students as they boarded the buses. The employee of SamTrans and the vice principal were named because they failed to make sure that students were allowed to board the bus safely. Alexander Cano’s parents say that they only named Yan because he was the one in control of the car.

It seems like many different factors came together to cause this accident. The school was obviously negligent in not making proper arrangements for students to board their buses, and for not providing an adequate sized bus boarding area for the students. Although no reckless driving charges were filed against Yan, it does seem that there were some poor reflexes here. There were no skid marks at the scene of the crash, which means that he did not attempt to slam the brakes. He seems to have slammed on the gas, instead of the brakes. You can’t just walk away from an accident you caused unscathed because it might have been a mistake.

All in all, an accident like this taking place inside a public school is a shame. That more children were not injured in this crash was more a matter of luck than safety measures or Yan’s carefulness. Yan may find himself targeted in a joint lawsuit including all 13 students in the future.

If you have been injured in a pedestrian accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.