Southern California Accident News

62 year old has heart attack and crashed car causing his death.

This weekend, a 62 year old driver unfortunately had a heart attack while driving on Westbound Chapman in Orange California.  He lost control of his vehicle and struck a pole causing his death.  We want to offer our condolences to the family, who we shall not name for privacy purposes. 

Occasionally we are contacted by a perspective client that is the victim of such an accident. The other driver suffered a heart attack or stroke and lost control of their car causing a collision with our client. You might think that liability is clear against the heart attack driver since he caused the accident, but not necessarily so.  Other factors must be examined before you can claim negligence.

In California, negligence arises when a driver does something that an ordinary prudent person would not do.  As an example, if a driver runs a red light, someone would not ordinarily do that activity and since the driver was obviously not paying attention, liability is assessed.

In a case like this, we have to examine the events leading up to the accident.  Had this driver been warned not to driver?  Had his doctor told him that he was probably a danger on the road.  Did this driver have reason to believe he was unsafe.  If so, then liability would be found because the driver did not listen to the advice, as you and I would have.  However, if this was the first time a person experienced a heart attack and nothing could be done to prevent the collision, liability will likely not be found.

These types of cases require an experienced Laguna Niguel lawyer on your side to investigate all the facts supporting the accident.  Call us for a free consultation at 1 866-981-5596. 

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