Dump Truck Brake Failure / Fatal Collision

We settled a wrongful death case on behalf of the two adult children of an 80-year-old University of California-Berkeley professor who was killed when a runaway dump truck careened down a hill and struck her while she was on her way to work. The decedent, a nationally known educator, had a particularly close relationship with her adult children. They continued to receive financial support from her and looked to her for guidance and inspiration. The defendants claimed that because the children were fully emancipated, their loss was modest. Further, given their mother’s advanced age, the defendants claimed that her shortened life expectancy would have resulted in her death from natural causes in a relatively short time.