SAN DIEGO — A woman accused of driving drunk and the wrong way on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge, causing a three-vehicle injury crash that prompted a two-hour shutdown of the span in both directions, pleaded not guilty Wednesday to felony DUI charges.

Briana Rall, 24, was ordered held on $130,000 bail.

She was allegedly behind the wheel of an eastbound Ford Fusion that collided with a Ford F-150, then struck a Dodge Ram in the westbound lanes near the toll plaza on the Coronado side shortly after 4 a.m. Monday, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Rall was arraigned at UC San Diego Medical Center, where she was taken after the accident to be treated for her injuries.

The driver of the Ford pickup truck, a 49-year-old San Diego woman, suffered major injuries in the crash and was also taken to UC San Diego Medical Center.

The 27-year-old San Diego man who had been driving the Dodge pickup was treated at the same hospital for minor injuries, said CHP Officer Jake Sanchez.

Rall faces six years in prison if convicted. She will be back in court May 9 for a readiness conference and June 14 for a preliminary hearing.

When filing a California injury claim, refrain from social media, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. While social media is likely a staple to your social life and business progression it can be destructive to your California injury claim. Just ask your personal injury lawyer in San Diego, California.

How Social Media Can Hurt Your California Injury Claim

Social media such as Facebook and Twitter encourage you to post your activities and engage in conversations with friends and family. Some social media also allow you to post and even tag pictures. A lot of social media users post their feelings and opinions on topics, too. All these things will be used against you in court if you file a California injury claim.

Just like an employer would look into your social media profiles to get a deeper idea of your character, your opponent in court will do the same thing, whether it’s an attorney or insurance adjuster. If you use social media over the Internet, anyone can access your information.

Tips to Safeguard Privacy on Your Social Media Profiles

If you’ve been injured in a San Diego accident and are planning on filing a California injury claim, you will want to take serious precautions when managing your social media profiles.

There are a few tips to take into consideration if you continue to use social media when filing a California injury claim, including: 

• Set social media profiles to private – before you file a California injury claim, your social media account will allow you to block other users viewing your profile. Block outside users and anyone you think will use your information against you.
• Manage your profile pictures and videos – from the time you file a California injury claim until the case is closed, don’t post or tag any pictures or videos that show you’ve been active. For instance, don’t post pictures of a trip, party or any other activity your opponent can hold against you.
• Suspend your social media accounts – it will be easier for you to suspend your social media accounts entirely when you file a California injury claim. It will lower the risk of losing your case.
• Be honest – be upfront with your personal injury lawyer in San Diego, California in regards to your social media sites. Your personal injury lawyer will be better off winning your case if he or she knows the truth.
• Don’t be public with your case – don’t make your California injury claim a conversation piece. People do talk and you don’t know to whom. 

As much as you may love to use social media, know it can backfire if you file a California injury claim.

Help After a San Diego Accident

When the unthinkable happens and you or a loved one is injured in a San Diego accident, know that you don’t have to face this challenge alone. The personal injury lawyers in San Diego at the law offices of Keith J. Stone are here to provide all of the information you need about California injury law so you can make informed choices about your personal injury claim. We even offer a FREE auto accident guide for Southern California residents. If you’re looking for personalized care and attention at this vulnerable time, contact our offices today – 619-531-2022 or toll free at 1-888-59-HELP-NOW.

The San Diego-based Office of attorney Keith J. Stone serves the following areas in Southern California:

When you call your San Diego personal injury attorney for help filing a California personal injury claim, you should save all the evidence from your accident. There are many ways insurance companies and your opponent will use information against you.

If you’re smart about documenting evidence of your injuries and the scene of the accident, you and your San Diego personal injury attorney will be more at an advantage of receiving full compensation for your injuries. Call your San Diego personal injury attorney for more claim advice about keeping evidence.

Evidence for your California Personal Injury Claim

Auto accident: If you’ve been injured in a San Diego auto accident, there’s information you want to take that’ll help you with your California personal injury claim.

First, take notes of the auto accident and get contact information from other drivers involved in your auto accident. Second, a picture is worth a thousand words. Take pictures of your injuries, the scene of your auto accident, and damages of your possessions. Lastly, keep all receipts related to your auto accident. This includes medical bills, prescriptions, medical travel expenses, etc.

Dog bites: If you’ve been bitten by a dog in the San Diego area, there’s evidence that will help file your California personal injury claim.

First, get the owner’s contact information and take notes, such as “the dog wasn’t on a leash” and so on. Second, take pictures of the dog, if you can, and your injuries. Lastly, save emergency medical bands (if applicable), medial bills, and document any therapy or surgery that has to be done.

Premises liability: If you’ve been injured on someone else’s property in the city of San Diego, take precautions to pursue full compensation for your California personal injury claim.

First, write down contact information of the property holder and don’t say anything the defendant can use against you when you file a California personal injury claim. Second, take pictures of your injuries and the premises. The more pictures you take, the more evidence your San Diego personal injury attorney can show to prove the premises was dangerous. Panoramas, close-ups, shots from different angles, and shots from different lighting perspectives will help your California personal injury claim.

Gathering evidence from your accident is claim advice that will greatly help you and your San Diego personal injury attorney file a California personal injury claim. Keep your evidence private from insurance companies and the defendant because they’ll find a way to use it against your California personal injury claim. It’s helpful to consult with a San Diego personal injury attorney for additional claim advice and to guide you through your process to pursue full compensation for your injuries.

Help For Filing a California Personal Injury Claim

When the unthinkable happens and you or a loved one is injured in a California accident, you don’t have to face this challenge alone. The San Diego personal injury attorneys at the law offices of Keith J. Stone are here to provide all of the information you need about California injury law so you can make informed choices about your personal injury claim. If you’re looking for personalized care and attention at this vulnerable time, contact our offices today – 619-531-2022 or toll free at 1-888-59-HELP-NOW.

The San Diego-based Office of attorney Keith J. Stone serves the following areas in Southern California:

After you’ve been involved in a California car accident, you must be able to prove negligence of the other party in order to have a valid California car accident claim. There are 5 elements of negligence that you and your San Diego car crash lawyer will have to prove to improve chances of obtaining compensation from your California car accident claim.

Five Elements of Negligence

The 5 elements of negligence are: 

• Duty: The court will decide if the defendant had a duty to act in a certain manner that could have prevented your California car accident. Obeying posted speed limits and using turn signals are examples of a defendant’s duty.
• Breach of Duty: If the defendant failed to abide by the duty owed to the plaintiff, the defendant could be held liable for a California car accident. For example, if your California car accident resulted because the defendant was speeding, this will serve as proof that the defendant breached his or her duty.
• Cause in Fact: This is essentially the legal cause of your accident. If the defendant was speeding and hit you because he or she was not able to brake in time to avoid a crash, cause in fact can be established.
• Proximate Cause: This is the sequence of events that led to your injury. Without proximate cause, you would not have injuries or a valid California car accident claim.
• Damages: The plaintiff must show documented physical injuries to recover damages. To help your California car accident claim, you should take pictures of your injuries and property damage and keep all medical appointments and receipts. 

When negligence can be proven, your chances of collecting compensation are still 50/50. After you’ve proven that the defendant caused your California car accident, it comes down to your percentage of fault in the car accident to determine the worth of your California car accident claim.

California distributes compensation for injuries based on its pure comparative negligence system. You’ll be compensated based on your total percentage of fault. Even if you’re 97% at fault, you’ll still be compensated for the 3% that you weren’t.

Contact a San Diego car crash lawyer to help protect your California car accident claim. A San Diego car crash lawyer is familiar with the process in filing a California car accident claim under California’s negligence laws and will work to fight for the compensation you deserve.

Help After a California Car Accident

When the unthinkable happens and you or a loved one is injured in a California car accident know that you don’t have to face this challenge alone. The San Diego car crash lawyer at the law offices of Keith J. Stone are here to provide all of the information you need about California injury law so you can make informed choices about your California car accident claim. We even offer a FREE auto accident guide for Southern California residents. If you’re looking for personalized care and attention at this vulnerable time, contact our offices today – 1-619-531-2022 or toll-free at 1-888-59-HELP-NOW.

The San Diego-based Office of attorney Keith J. Stone serves the following areas in Southern California:

Typically the person who caused the harm walks away with no problems. Unfortunately, the victim may suffer traumatic spinal injury, brain injury, brain damage, wounds, amputation, multiple fractures, or severe burns. Attorney Keith J. stone has experience and the know how to assist you so you can receive the very best compensation for all the harm that you have suffered.

In the turmoil and anxiety that follows the accident or crash, try to keep a cool head in order to help yourself and you loved ones. San Diego serious accident attorney Keith J. Stone wants to help you right away! The following is a to-do checklist of information that should be collected as best possible to assist in your case. This checklist should be started as soon as possible, for every item in this list can seriously impact the end result of your case:

• Accident: document the location, accident scene and description, photos, police report, witnesses and contact data are all helpful- don’t forget the power of your cell phone, use your cell phone’s camera if necessary, document that other person, the scene and cooperation with the police officers

• Other party’s information: name, insurance company and policies, vehicle identification, driver’s license, address and contact data. Did you smell any alcohol on the other’s person’s breath? Did the other person make and admissions or apologies such as “I did not see you,” “I could not stop in time,” “I was on my cell phone”

• Medical expenses: if you paid for parking at your doctor’s office get a receipt. Under California law it provides that the person who caused your harm should reimburse you for all the harm that he or she causes. This includes doctor and hospital visits, prescriptions, medications, and other types or modalities of medical care. Do the best you can and keep track of your medical bills, your damages, and/or other items that include recovery for the harm that the other side has caused.

• Loss of income: keep track in term of your own records as to the amount of hours or days that you were not able to work due to your crash related injuries and/or damages. Please get written confirmation from your employer if necessary. Please ask your doctor should your case warrant providing you with a work release so you have adequate time to heal so your injuries or damages do not increase at work.

Attorney Keith J. Stone can assist you in obtaining the appropriate forms to establish your loss of income and/or future income.

• Loss of education: note of interrupted school time or training courses missed, or class due to your crash related injuries, not being able to study for tests, having to change careers due to life changing injuries.

• Pain and suffering: In California pain and suffering would also include your anxiety, duress, embarrassment, and other intangible elements of pain and loss of quality of life.

Attorney Keith J. Stone recommends that you keep a log or diary as to what you are going through in terms of these areas.

• Out of pocket expenses: please keep all receipts or expenses related to your accident. These can include property damages repairs, holiday bookings lost, car rental and taxi receipts, childcare and elder care receipts, co-pays and parking.

To ensure that your case is complete and all current and future expenses and suffering accounted for, San Diego attorney Keith J. Stone works with the best experts in the medical field including neurology, spinal surgery, neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery- and consults with other various health professionals regarding healing, rehabilitation, therapy, infections and psychological care.

Calculating the immediate and long term implications of a serious injury, and achieving the highest compensation in or out of court is the work of specialists, and the work of a passionate lawyer who puts people over profits. 

Call attorney Keith J. Stone now for a free discussion of your case or send him an email.

The San Diego-based Office of attorney Keith J. Stone serves the following areas in Southern California:

From ladders to lifts to lawn-mowers, cranes to contraceptives, toys to tractors, products should be manufactured to be safe. Safe in the sense that consumer should not be exposed to products with design or manufacturing defects.  Surely some products can be dangerous, but they should not be defective.  Manufacturers owe it to consumers to provide sound products that will not cause bodily harm, severe injury, or death due to faulty manufacturing or design.

Unfortunately though, it does happen.  For example, as of March 2012 12,000 lawsuits have been brought against the manufacturers of Yasmin/Yaz contraceptives.  These contraceptives have been known to have severe side affects such as blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, and gallbladder related issues.  Cases where someone is harmed due to defective products are categorized as “Product Liability” cases.

According to Product Liability laws an individual can hold the manufacturer of a bad or faulty product responsible for injuries incurred hile using the product.  If found the product is unsafe due to a design or manufacturing problem, manufacturers can receive sever penalties and have to pay compensation to the plaintiff, the person bring the lawsuit against the manufacturer.

In some cases, Strict Liability can be cited as a claim for a Product Liability case.  Strict Liability operates under the assumption that the defendant, the person being sued, was aware of the fault or defect in a product before it reached the plaintiff.  Strict Liability is different from negligence because the plaintiff is relieved of the burden of proof (or the requirement to prove that any injuries were the direct result of a defendant’s negligence).

Strict Liability simply states when injuries or damages were sustained the defendant is responsible.  However, in order to claim Strict Liability a few things must be true:

1.  The defendant manufactured the faulty or bad product

2.  The product was defective upon purchase by the plaintiff

3.  The product was defective upon sale by the defendant

4.  The fault in the particular product was to blame for the plaintiff’s injury

A particular case involving Strict Liability occurred in the 1970’s involving the Ford Pinto automobile.  Feeling pressured to produce a new car to compete with Volkswagen in the small-car market, Ford rushed the production of the Pinto in a much shorter amount of time than they normally would have.  during the production engineers discovered that rear end collisions easily ruptured the Ford Pinto’s fuel system which could quickly ignite.  Rather than spend the $11 it would take on each car to implement a safer fuel system, which Ford owned patents on, ford continued with the production of the dangerous Pintos.  Estimates indicate that around 500 deaths have occurred due to Ford’s faulty fuel system, and countless more injuries.

In the case of the Ford Pintos Strict Liability applied because:

1.  Ford, the defendant, manufactured the defective automobile

2.  The Pinto was defective when purchased by the plaintiff, or the consumer

3.  The Pinto was defective when sold by Ford

4.  The fault in the Pinto’s fuel system that caused the automobile to easily catch fire when arear end collision occurred was the reason for the consumer’s injuries.

On another note, manufacturers can be exempt from liability in such cases that the product was unsafe, but the consumer knew about it.  The danger of the product must have been common knowledge to the public before the consumer used it, however.

In any case, it is valuable to read up on and become familiar with Product Liability and Strict Liability if you or a loved one has been the victim of a faulty or defective product.  If you or someone you know has been injured because of a bad product, contact the Law Offices of Keith J. Stone.  Keith Stone and his team have handled many Product Liability cases and can offer valuable experience that can help your case.  they will work tot he best of their abilities to ensure that you receive the compensation you deserve.

San Diego, Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Ventura Counties including the cities of:

San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Riverside, Chula Vista, Irvine, Glendale, San Bernardino, Huntington Beach, Oxnard, Fontana, Moreno Valley, Oceanside, Rancho Cucamonga, Santa Clarita, Garden Grove, Ontario, Pomona, Palmdale, Pasadena, Corona, Torrance, Escondido, Lancaster, Orange, Fullerton, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, El Monte, Inglewood, Costa Mesa, Downey, West Covina, Victorville, San Buenaventura (Ventura), Norwalk, Burbank, Carlsbad, Temecula, South Gate, Murrieta, Mission Viejo, Rialto, Compton, El Cajon, Carson, Vista, Westminster, Santa Maria, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Hawthorne, Alhambra, Hesperia, Whittier, Newport Beach, Chino, San Marcos, Buena Park, Lakewood, Indio, Baldwin Park, Chino Hills, Blythe

Keith J. Stone also handles cases originating elsewhere in California and across the USA.

On July 30 around 2:30 p.m. a car crash on Interstate 805 killed 1 child and left two other children and one adult hospitalized.  The collison involved a pickup truck and a minivan according to authorities.  Due to extensive damage, the roof of the minivan had to be removed by San Diego fire crews to extract the victims.  The child unfortunately died at the scene.

It’s a tragedy any time a child dies.  The death of a child is undoubtedly one of the absolute most horrendous moments in a parent’s life.

In the event that an accident occurred in which the child died and somebody else was at fault, then it is considered a “wrongful death” cases.

In “wrongful death” cases involving minors (those under the age of 18) parents or legal guardians can sue the party at fault for  damages.

What are damages to the parents?

Damages attempt to measure, in financial terms, the extent or harm a plaintiff (the person bringing suit) has suffered because of the defendant’s (the person being sued) actions.  Damages are usually directly awarded to somebody injured as a result of another person.  However, in the case of a wrongful death of a child, damages go to the parents.  If there are no parents, siblings or grandparents may be eligible.

Damages can be assessed for parents’ loss of love, companionship, affection, comfort, solace, moral support, and protection that the child could have been expected to give throughout the parent’s expected life.  Parents do not receive damages for grief, sorrow, or the deceased’s pre death pain and suffering.  Damages vary from case to case depending on such factors as a child’s age, disposition to be kindly and affectionate, and wether there are other children in the family etc.

How do you assign a dollar figure for the loss of a living, breathing, mischievous, laughing, playful, and joyful young child?  These cases are difficult on all fronts.  If you, a friend, or a family member has suffered such a loss please feel free to contact Keith J. Stone for support and advice.

San Diego, Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Ventura Counties including the cities of:

San Diego, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Riverside, Chula Vista, Irvine, Glendale, San Bernardino, Huntington Beach, Oxnard, Fontana, Moreno Valley, Oceanside, Rancho Cucamonga, Santa Clarita, Garden Grove, Ontario, Pomona, Palmdale, Pasadena, Corona, Torrance, Escondido, Lancaster, Orange, Fullerton, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, El Monte, Inglewood, Costa Mesa, Downey, West Covina, Victorville, San Buenaventura (Ventura), Norwalk, Burbank, Carlsbad, Temecula, South Gate, Murrieta, Mission Viejo, Rialto, Compton, El Cajon, Carson, Vista, Westminster, Santa Maria, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara, Hawthorne, Alhambra, Hesperia, Whittier, Newport Beach, Chino, San Marcos, Buena Park, Lakewood, Indio, Baldwin Park, Chino Hills, Blythe

Keith J. Stone also handles cases originating elsewhere in California and across the USA.