Savage V. friendly Cab

$250K

This horrible, tragic accident occurred  on July 10, 2011 at 3am.  Mr. Savage was driving alone on I-880 in Oakland when he was rear-ended by a Friendly Cab, and then hit by a third car.  Mr. Savage was ejected out of the rear window and died at the scene. 

There were many conflicting witnesses and the cab driver claimed that Mr. Savage's car was spinning out of control before he hit him and this was supported by his passenger who testified that the cab was not "in an accident, but ran into an ongoing accident."  But another driver testified that the cab had sped past him going over 75mph and that he feared the cab might cause an accident.

This case was further complicated by the fact that the driver of the second car that hit Mr. Savage fled the scene on foot and was uninsured. 

Because Mr. Savage was ejected from his car, the cab's accident expert testified that Mr. Savage was not wearing a seat belt. Another defense expert testfied that Mr. Savage would have probably lived had he been wearing his seat belt. 

Because liabiity was heavily disputed and complicated we hired an accident reconstruction expert who worked with an animation specialist to graphically recreate the accident. This video recreation was key to our obtaining a pre-trial settlement. Note that in the video, the cars end in the exact location as depicted in the police report. 

Mr. Savage's heirs were 4 adult children and there were no economic damages, as Mr. Savage was not supporting any of his adult children.

This very difficult case was settled for $250,000, the day after jury selection began.