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.

When Jabari, the 13-year-old 340-pound gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, executed a flying leap that landed him out of his enclosure and right into a bunch of terrified visitors, it was the wildest thing people at the Wilds of Africa exhibit at the zoo had seen. The gorilla went on a rampage, picking a toddler up with his teeth and then biting him. It also attacked another woman and her child. In all, the gorilla rampage injured four visitors to the zoo who had been unfortunate enough to be outside his enclosure that particular day. The pandemonium continued for a few minutes before zoo security keepers shot the animal dead.

Now, a Dallas court has ruled that the city can’t be given immunity in lawsuits bought by the victims of the gorilla attack. The lawsuit had alleged, among other things, that the city neglected to provide adequate confinement of gorillas and provided an “unreasonable risk of escape.” The victims, 3-year-old Rivers Noah and his mother, Keish Heard, were among those who were injured in the attack. River was admitted to hospital with lacerations and bite injuries on his head and chest. His mother was bitten on the legs. Another woman and child were also injured.

The victims say their medical bills after the rampage cost them tens of thousands of dollars, and are seeking compensation for these expenses, as well as the trauma they suffered at the time of the attack. In a case like this, it’s easy to believe that the emotional suffering and trauma on being attacked by an angry animal must have been worse than the physical scars.

The zoo had its own way of dealing with the attack. Officials claim that the leap from his enclosure was a one in a million occurrence. That doesn’t absolve them of any responsibility. This wasn’t a genetically modified gorilla. This was a normal sized gorilla for his species, that’s found in zoos across the world. When you decide to keep an animal of that size in your zoo, you better be aware of what makes him irritated or angry enough to fly over a12 foot leap. A “one in a million” type defense is not easy to stomach.

The possibility of human error too has not been ruled out. Investigators say they found no sign of any human interference in the security doors and other mechanisms, but animal experts have voiced their skepticism that a gorilla could leap across a 12-foot moat or scale a 15-foot wall.

Regardless of whether it was human error or a leap, there’s no doubt that the zoo and the city are still liable, and we hope the victims receive compensation for their suffering and losses.

A series of settlements have been announced in the Cook County Administration Building fire of 2003, which killed six people. Victims will now receive $25.3 million, of which Cook County will pay $9 million.

For the victims, it means the end of a long wait for an appropriate compensation for the trauma of that day, while for Cook County it means prevention of possible financial ruin if the case had actually gone to a jury. As it stands now, the insurance companies will pay the settlement. If the case had gone to a jury, Cook County would have been liable to pay out any amounts over their insurance coverage.

The fire broke out in the locker storage room of the building on October 17,2003. The six victims and another 16 others who were injured were trapped in the stairwell that had self-locking doors. The stairwell filled up with smoke, while the victims called for help on their cell phones.

One survivor’s, Jody Schneiderman’s, phone call to 911 was played out at a court hearing last year. In it, Schneiderman can be heard pleading for rescuers to come get them quick, while sounds of panic were heard all around her.

When the blaze had died down, 6 were dead, and the survivors were left to relive memories of that horrific day. As it turned out in the days after, a series of mistakes by firefighters and Cook County 911 services were to blame for the catastrophe. There was a complete lack of coordination, it appeared, which lead to confusion on the ground. They also failed to mark one stairwell for evacuation purposes to get those trapped in the building out to safety, and another for fire fighting purposes. The consequences were tragic.

This settlement is good for the county in more ways than one. Not only would they have been liable to pay the settlement from their own funds, which would have stretched them financially had the case gone to a jury, but they also avoid a rehashing of the sort of criticism that the fire department faced soon after the fire. A jury trial would have reopened old wounds and whipped up emotions against the Chicago Fire Department, a prospect Cook County probably didn’t relish. They can also avoid the prospect of survivors recounting damaging testimony about the complete and utter mismanagement that occurred on that day. One survivor said that she was ordered back into the stairwell by a firefighter. The stairwell quickly filled up with smoke. Such instances of ineptitude do nothing for the image that Cook County tries so dearly to protect, hence the relief over the settlement.

An old precedent makes Cook County immune to lawsuits that have been caused by errors of firefighters and other emergency service personnel, but exceptions have been made in this case. Obviously, the instances of ineptitude by the firefighters were glaring enough to set aside old precedents.

If you have been injured or a loved one has been killed in a fuel-fed fire, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

It must be hard to be Dominick Narigi - not only was the 19-year-old driving in an SUV rollover accident that killed his brother Anthony, but the Salinas resident has now been charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.

On July 22 of last year, Dominick, along with his 22-year-old brother and two others, were at the Red Bull Grand Prix motorcycle races at Laguna Seca. When they left the races, Dominick was at the wheel and Anthony was in the passenger seat. For unknown reasons, the 2002 GMC Yukon veered into a culvert. Dominick over corrected, and the SUV rolled over. The two passengers in the back seat escaped with minor injuries. Dominick and Anthony were ejected from their seats.

Both were airlifted to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for treatment for their severe injuries. Five days after the SUV rollover accident, Anthony was taken off life support. Dominick underwent a total of four surgeries before he was declared fit to leave.

The SUV rollover accident was more than just a personal tragedy for the Narigi family. The boy’s father John Narigi has been the general manager of the Monterey Plaza Hotel, and has been an upstanding member of the community. Among other things, he helped lead the renovation of Monterey High’s football stadium. A memorial service for the boy drew a1000 strong attendance.

At the time of the SUV rollover Dominick’s responsibility in the accident could not be ascertained. When the boys were taken to Santa Clara Valley Medical Center after the rollover accident, Dominick was not given a blood alcohol test.

After the rollover accident, witnesses came forward to inform the California Highway Patrol that Dominick had been drinking Vodka and Red Bull at the Red Bull Hospitality tent. The accounts said that prior to the rollover accident, Dominick had consumed as many as four drinks.

According to Assistant District Attorney Berkely Brannon, his office wanted to pursue that lead, but investigations were hampered when those witnesses hired lawyers, and refused to speak to prosecutors, unless they were served subpoenas. The DA‘s office managed to get those subpoenas, but had to release those important witnesses after a settlement was reached.

So far though, the DA’s office has no evidence that would support that Dominick was under the influence or that this was what caused the SUV rollover. For now, the DA’s office hopes he will arrive in court and plead guilty.

It doesn’t make things easier for anybody involved that the man he is accused of killing by his possible drunken driving is his own brother. The parents are obviously not ready to support any prosecution against him, and it’s easy to see why. They’ve already lost one son to a rollover accident. The last thing they want is for their other son to be prosecuted for it.

If you have been injured or a loved one has been killed in a SUV rollover accident, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Robert Young’s family will finally have the closure they’ve been waiting for. Six years after the Monroe businessman was killed in a plane crash in Oak Grove, a jury has awarded a settlement of $4 million to be paid by the company that manufactured the faulty engine that was seen to have been the cause of the crash. Teledyne Continental Motors, the company that manufactured the engine, will pay the settlement to Young’s family.

In January 2002, Young was returning home from a hunting camp in Arkansas, when the plane developed engine trouble. Before long, the plane had crashed into a field. Young died on impact.

His family alleged it was the faulty engine that caused the crash. Young had been an avid flying enthusiast, and there was nothing to suggest otherwise. There has been controversy about the judgment and the possibility of pilot error having caused the crash, but obviously a jury thought differently.

This is reportedly the largest civil settlement ever awarded in the area, and $4 million dollars is not an amount given away lightly. The jury must have seen damaging and solid evidence against TCM to take away so much. When we take to the skies, we put our life in the hands of the engine manufacturers. Any engine defect can prove deadly when you are several miles about ground. This is why we must hold these manufacturers to the highest standards possible, and punish severely when they fall below these standards.

It would seem, based on the jury’s verdict, that TCM fell below these standards, and as a result, Robert Young paid the ultimate price. Being a prominent member of society, he will be missed by his community, and by his family. There was no financial need for this family to pursue a settlement. Money wasn’t the reason here. They most likely wanted to absolve their father of any errors on his part, which may have caused the crash. They obviously believed very strongly in the defective nature of the engine, and believed that pursuing the case and clearing Young’s name was more important than the money. Now, it appears that they can finally call the matter closed.

If you or a loved one have been injured or killed in a plane crash, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury attorney. Contact a lawyer at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

13-year-old Daniel Decembre should be looking forward to his teenage years and boisterous times with his friends. Instead, the young boy can never visit friends, he has them come over instead. The looks of horror and fright on the faces of people around him when he steps out of the house have turned this child into a social recluse. To get to know Daniel, onlookers first have to get past the sight of his face, scarred from a pit bull attack, with scar tissue on one ear and the other one missing.

The attack happened at Ridgewood Park Elementary School five years ago. Daniel was waiting for an after school tutoring class, when a pit bull raced through the open gates of the school and made for a bunch of kids. Daniel was among them. The kids tried to escape, and so did Daniel, but he tripped and fell. Within seconds, the 50 pound dog was on him mauling his face. Teachers reportedly tried to chase the dog away, and used objects to hit the dog. Finally, one teacher managed to chase the dog away by hitting him with an umbrella. By then, the damage had been done. Daniel was in second grade at the time of the accident.

Since then, Daniel has had a total of five surgeries to correct the damage to his face, but still needs more work done. His parents say it will take more surgeries to get rid of the large lump of scar tissue on his ear, and reconstructive surgery to attach a prosthetic ear. He has trouble with the tear duct in his eye.

His physical scars are the kind that will be healed to an extent by plastic surgery, but the mental and emotional scars are too deep to ignore. Daniel can’t go out without making his father stand by the gate to see him off, and can’t hope for a normal reaction from people who see him for the first time. There aren’t too many kids that are willing to be friends with a boy who has what they cruelly call a “scar face.” And as Daniel takes his place in high school, taunts like this can be expected to become worse.

His parents settled a lawsuit with the Orange County School Board for $2 million, but under law, the school board only has to pay $200,000 unless the Florida state legislature approves the rest. The settlement has already been passed by the Florida Senate, but has yet to be approved by the Florida House.

Officials at the Orange County School Board have admitted that they settled because they feared that a jury would award a higher sum to Daniel based on his extensive injuries.

There’s no doubt about what the state legislature should do in this case - it should pass the settlement, so that Daniel’s parents have a way of paying for the very expensive facial reconstruction surgeries that the boy will need more of. The Orange County School Board will have to pay the remaining $1.8 million settlement if it does pass, and it’s only appropriate that they do so.

Whining that the school board is already financially stressed doesn’t help matters – the gates of the school were open at the time of the attack. This was a school that had complained many times about the presence of dangerous dogs in the vicinity. Why then did they leave the gates open? And why was no action taken by the school board regarding these complaints? If you knew that there were vicious dogs sniffing around your school, wouldn’t your priority be to make sure that the kids were safe? Basic common sense should tell you that the gates should have been shut.

We feel the anguish of Daniel’s family. This boy has been through a traumatic experience, and it’s high time that the family was compensated for their suffering.

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

When the bus carrying 27 Montana prison employees rolled and crashed on Interstate 90 near Warm Springs, the fiberglass body of the bus disintegrated. The framework was crushed like a shoebox, and it’s actually a miracle more people were not killed in the wreckage. When the wreckage had been cleared, one woman was killed, and 26 others were injured in the crash.

Now Jaime Ryan, the daughter of Sonja Ryan, the woman who was killed, is suing the bus company. She has filed a wrongful death complaint seeking unspecified damages.

The accident occurred on November 16, 2007, and was traced to the bus swerving to avoid a deer nearly a mile north of the Glen exit. The out-of-control bus rolled over before coming to a rest on its side. The impact of the crash was deadly, with the framework being crushed beyond recognition. It took two tow trucks to straighten the wreckage sufficiently enough for it to be towed away.

The bus was a 30-seater 2007 Diamond Coach bus and was reportedly new. The company that owned the bus at the time of the accident, Tucker Transportation, insisted that safety had been paramount to the company.

It really couldn’t have been that paramount after all if the bus could just collapse like a house of cards after rolling over. Pictures of the wreckage showed what looked like a toy bus that had been taken apart. The other occupants of the bus were extremely fortunate.

The case is reported to be at a preliminary hearing. At least three other lawsuits have been filed in the case, including those by Douglas Jager, Kevin Hart, Mathew Montez Michael Fuller and Richard Smith Marvin LaTray. The reasons for the bus disintegration are being looked into at this point in time.

However, there is some evidence that safe guards in the bus were sorely lacking. The complaints indicate that there were no restraints, and there was no roll bar. This lack of safety measures is seen to have caused the kind of damage that was seen after the crash.

Ryan’s lawsuit cites the driver’s negligence and carelessness as the cause of the accident. Only Tucker Transportation has been named as a defendant. Jaime Ryan is seeking survival damages for her mother’s estate.

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

In an ideal world, Stephen R. Catalano would be facing the prospect of many years in a jail cell. Instead, the man who caused the death of a 14-year-old girl and injured at least 10 others faces the prospect of having his prison time reduced, if he is convicted.

This week, an indictment against the West Babylon driver dismissed three indictments against him, related to driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. With this, the potential time that Catalano could serve in prison will be reduced from 2 1/3 to 7 years, to 1 1/3 to 4 years.

So, one teenager is dead, others were injured, and the man gets to walk home with as low a 1 1/3 years if he is convicted.

The accident, which killed Angelic Nappi, happened on February 16. Angelica, her sister Nicollete along with three friends, Rachel Williams, Tanisha Combs and Brittany Combs were headed to the movies in a Saturn. Catalan, who was driving with two other passengers, ran a red light at County 101 and slammed into the Saturn. Angelica was severely injured and died three days later. Catalano and his passengers also suffered severe injuries.

After the crash it was revealed that Catalano had 11 suspensions on his driving record. He had a long history of driving offenses, and the day of the crash he had been scheduled to appear in court on another aggravated driving charge. In short, this was a man who treated the streets like his own private fiefdom with not a thought for others sharing space with him. 11 suspensions is not a laughing matter. We are not talking about a random speeding ticket here. We’re talking about a history of reckless driving, and a man who had no business being behind the wheel at all.

And now comes this. An indictment has actually lowered the charges against Catalano. Toxicology reports have now come back showing that there was no alcohol involved in the crash. The new indictment lists homicide, a felony, third-degree assault, reckless driving, second-degree aggravated unlicensed operation, failing to stop and two counts of speeding. The only punishment, if you can call it that, is that his bail amount has now been increased from $25,000 to $75,000.

We can expect some legal maneuvering from Catalano’s legal team to get him off with as low a sentence as possible. The Saturn had a total of six persons in it, and this might well be taken as a case of overcrowding and failure to wear seat belts. We wouldn’t be surprised if there are “blame the victim” tactics used here too.

We hope Angelica’s family is considering a civil lawsuit against Catalona. If the courts can’t give him what he deserves, maybe a wrongful death verdict will.