A car accident in Mariposa County resulted in three deaths and four injuries the afternoon of August 14, 2010. The Fresno Bee reports that the fatally injured victims of this crash were identified as Deana Smith, 39, Michael Smith, 43, both of Chowchilla, and Sharon Law, a 55-year-old woman from El Portal. The fatal accident occurred on Highway 140 near Colorado Road. A Ford Bronco driven by Marissa Fuqua, 18, crossed over a double yellow line while negotiating a curve on the highway and entered opposing lanes of traffic. The Bronco then slammed into an oncoming motorcycle and a Ford Escape. The Smiths, who were riding on the Harley, were killed as was Law, the driver of the Escape. Fuqua and three passengers in her vehicle sustained injuries. An investigation is ongoing.
My heart goes out to the families of the Smiths and Law for their tragic and devastating loss. They will be in my thoughts and prayers. I also pray that the injured victims recover swiftly and completely.
Accident Statistics
One fatality and 33 injuries were reported as a result of motorcycle accidents in Mariposa County, according to the California Highway Patrol's 2008 Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS). Also, countywide, four fatalities and 102 injuries were reported as a result of car accidents during the same year.
Causes and Compensation Issues
Based on this news report, it is not quite clear what caused this fatal accident. There are still several unanswered questions. Was Fuqua under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs at the time? Was she distracted, speeding or driving recklessly? Was there a vehicle defect or mechanical malfunction in the Bronco, which caused her to lose control and crash? I trust officials are in the process of determining how or why this crash occurred.
If Fuqua is determined to have been at fault in this case, she could be held criminally and civilly liable for the accident, injuries and fatalities. Families of injured victims in such cases would be well-advised to seek the counsel of a reputed Fresno personal injury lawyer, who will analyze all aspects of the incident and ensure that the negligent parties are held responsible for their actions.
What are some of the biggest challenges faced by injured victims and their families in the aftermath of a crash?
None of the parties mentioned in this article are represented by us at the time this article was posted. The source of our information is cited in the article. If you were involved in this incident and have questions as to your rights and options, call a reputable law firm for a consultation. Do not act solely upon the information provided herein. The BISNAR | CHASE personal injury law firm will provide free, confidential consultation to "not at fault" persons and their family members if you mention your source was the “Personal Injury Law Journal." They can be reached at 866-456-5235 during California business hours.
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August 20th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
COMPLETELY TASTELESS. I'm googling info on this HORRIFIC ACCIDENT that involves people I know, only to see some AMBULANCE CHASING ATTORNEY try to take advantage of a bad situation. Let's go ahead and RUIN the life this young adult just began & ruined by an ACCIDENT. NO DRUGS OR ALCOHOL INVOLVED. These people aren't even buried yet and you're on top of them. THIS IS WHY ATTORNEYS HAVE A REPUTATION FOR BEING COCKROACHES. I seriously DOUBTYou actually PRAYED as you said for anybody's recoveries, granted you did only mention you prayed for the "victims" injuries. By the way, the 18 yr old newly graduated young lady who was driving is suffering serious head injuries. This could be your daughter, your kid, your sister. ACCIDENT. Let's make sure we sue the ASS of her if she lives.
August 20th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
Thank you for your email regarding our August 17, 2010 blog article entitled "Three Killed in Mariposa County Car Crash." We welcome and invite comments and I appreciate your taking the time to write to express your opinion.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion, even if I don't agree with it. After all, free speech and freedom of the press are cornerstones of Americans' rights. The appropriate exchanging of differing opinions is healthy in all democratic societies.
Just like newspapers that report news, our blog reports news -- in our case, news of accidents. We then go a step further . . . we provide legal analysis of real world, actual events, based upon the news reports, in order to provide our readers real world insights into their rights and options. We pride ourselves in fairly reporting and analyzing news reports of traffic collisions and other incidents that have caused serious harm or death.
Our blog articles are provided as public service. Our intention is to assist those who do not have ready access to legal representation to have some idea of their rights and options and thereby level the playing field between the have's and have not's. It is also our intention to provoke thought as to what the cause of an incident may be so that the less common causes are not overlooked in the final analysis.
Keep in mind that our blog was not sent to you. You searched for information on the internet. Because of your search, you were provided many choices of websites to visit. You chose to visit our website and read our blog article.
Many people who have been in serious accidents, as well as their family members and friends, seek information about their accident from Internet sources, as apparently you did. It is our intention to provide actual accident information based upon reports from various sources along with additional relevant information such as applicable law, statistics, a cursory analysis and some points for the involved parties and their families to consider that news sources are not equipped to provide. It is our hope that by doing so, fewer people will lose their rights due to lack of information and more wrongdoers will be held appropriately accountable.
We are regularly consulted by accident victims and/or their surviving family members whose rights to recover rightful compensation has been terminated or seriously harmed by the failure to take timely, appropriate action. It is our intention to promote the prevention of these loss of rights by educating our readers as to what was reported to have happened in particular accidents, what laws may apply, how frequent similar accidents occur, who may be legally at fault, what their rights may be, time limits for taking action and so on.
People who have witnessed accidents and then read our blogs have been helpful to police agencies in providing information to assist in the determination of what and who caused various accidents as well as tracking down hit and run drivers that caused an accident and then fled the scene. In order to assist police agencies in apprehending hit-and-run drivers, we have set up an anonymous, hit-and-run reporting system and offer rewards for those who do report offenders. See http://www.hitandrunreward.com
Our blog has provided a forum for readers to express their well wishes to those involved in accidents, to comment about the accident, to share their feelings and to update all readers on new developments in a case.
We receive far more emails thanking us for this service than we do negative comments or personal attacks. We have received over a thousand reader comments.
We are not immune to personal attacks by those who disagree with our positions or our methods. However, the hurt of the personal attacks is outweighed by knowing we are providing a valuable service to people in one of their times of greatest need. We would rather suffer the personal attacks than to see accident victims taken advantage of for lack of knowledge or resources. Often it appears that negative comments to our blog articles are actually written by the people who are at fault in the accident and are trying to deflect or escape responsibility or by people trying to cover for someone who is at fault.
Often we hear from family and friends of accident victims whose only information about their family member or friend's accident is our blog, since it was the only information they could find about the accident. They express gratitude that we made the information available and some relief that at least they now have a better idea as to what happened. This is especially true in estranged families.
We have written and posted thousands of stories like the one you read. We received hundreds of "thank you" notes from people who were able to make good use of the information we provided. The number of people that comment on being assisted greatly out numbers the people who comment on being offended or cast stones.
I'd rather continue to assist those in need of our information, even at the risk of being chastised or worse by others.
In response to your statement, "I seriously DOUBT you actually PRAYED as you said for anybody's recoveries, granted you did only mention you prayed for the 'victims' injuries," Brian Chase, my law partner, my wife, my mother (before her passing this month) and I pray for accident victims every day. My mother even regularly arranged special prayer requests through her congregation for the people we are representing.
At any one time, we are representing hundreds of seriously injury accident victims as well as the family of deceased accident victims. We know firsthand what they are going through. We pray for them daily. "Victims" of an accident, include everyone who was injured or affected by the injuries, which includes you. Therefore, I understand that you are skeptical but praying for all those who are injured by accidents, sending them healing power and wishing them well, is a regular part of our day. Moreover, it doesn't matter which side of the "fault line" they are on.
Keep in mind that Webster's defines "accident" as "2 a: an unfortunate event resulting from carelessness, unawareness, ignorance, or a combination of causes; b: an unexpected happening causing loss or injury which is not due to any fault or misconduct on the part of the person injured but from the consequences of which he may be entitled to some legal relief."
In your comment you stated, " Let's go ahead and RUIN the life this young adult just began & ruined by an ACCIDENT." R. Johnson, "we" didn't ruin anything. "We" had nothing to do with causing this traffic collision. Any damage done is the fault of those responsible. It is possible, as our article points out ("Was there a vehicle defect or mechanical malfunction in the Bronco, which caused her to lose control and crash? I trust officials are in the process of determining how or why this crash occurred.") that Marissa Fuqua is not responsible for this accident and that is a possibility we want every reader to be aware of, especially officials investigating this collision. Many times vehicle defects/malfunctions and/or roadway conditions that cause or contribute to a collision are overlooked by traffic collision investigators. They have limited time and resources. They are not CSI like the one you see on TV.
Thank you again for taking the time to comment. I hope my response has shed some additional light on this horrible event and our response to it.
If you have any suggestions for how we could improve our methods, please share them with me.
John Bisnar
BISNAR | CHASE Personal Injury Attorneys
http://www.BestAttorney.com
http://www.CaliforniaInjuryBlog.com
949-752-2999
August 20th, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Dear Mr.Bisnar,
Thank you for taking the time to detail your position & acknowledge my feelings. I apologize. I will not be offended if you remove my post, that's just what I woke up to & how I responded without considering the overall picture of your position. I viewed it more as more of an advertisement or outreach for potential business to be gained, as they are not even buried yet, it was tweeted. And I will always support Constitutional Rights for citizens.
Yesterday I was having a converstion about an accident that took place a couple of years ago in Ahwahnee. The mother was driving when she swerved to avoid a car traveling in her lane near the '25mile' curve on Hwy. 49. She lost control & rolled her vehicle. Her 18 yr old was killed. Her car lay upside down in the middle of the road when another car came around the corner & hit hers. They sued her above what her insurance covered & won, although they were not injured. Besides losing her daughter, she also got bankrolled & had to take a loan to pay. So I guess you could say I was already fired up against you.
I apologize for assuming you must be non Christian as well. That was just mean. Please accept my apologies & remove it if you havent already. You have great points & I appreciate the fact that you cared enough to point them out to me.
Sincerely, God Bless You!
R. Johnson
August 20th, 2010 at 6:53 pm
R. Johnson,
Thank you for your reply. You have no idea how much I appreciate hearing back from you. In my business, I thick skin is necessary. It is however challenging to be caring about the real world effects accidents have on our clients and the opposing parties and keep up the "thick skin" so not to be offended by attacks and criticism.
There are a lot of people in my business who make the good ones look bad by association (as there are in all industries). You are not the only one who has chastised me for our articles, placing me in the basket with the "bad apples". I get about a dozen such responses a year to my 3,000 plus yearly articles. I do get hundreds of "thank you" comments which help take the sting out of the negative ones.
No one knows the heartache and tears shed inside the really good, caring personal injury law firms for all the people involved in accidents. It just isn't professional to allow it to be seen. We are the "rock" for our clients. They need to see and sense our strength. We can't afford to allow our emotions to negatively impact our representation for our clients. We cannot allow the opposing law firm to interpret anything we do as a sign of weakness.
We love helping our clients more than most will ever sense. If carrying the impression of a cold hearted, money grubbing bastard is what it takes to accomplish the best for my client, so be it.
Thank you again for your reply. Your initial response is totally understandable.
John Bisnar