California Personal Injury Attorneys Ringler Kearney Alvarez featured in Metrolink Article in the Burbank Leader:

Attorneys representing at least a dozen victims of the 2005 Metrolink derailment in Glendale that killed 11 people said Thursday that they had uncovered evidence that proved the train’s engineer was at fault for the accident.

Juan Manuel Alvarez was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms last year after a jury found him guilty of parking his Jeep Cherokee on the tracks near Chevy Chase Drive on Jan. 26, 2005. The failed suicide attempt caused the derailment, which sent Metrolink 901 off the tracks into a parked Union Pacific freighter, killing 11 passengers and injuring nearly 200 others.

It was the worst crash in the rail agency’s history until Metrolink 111 crashed head-on with a freighter Sept. 12 in Chatsworth, killing 25.

In a press briefing Thursday morning on the steps of a Los Angeles Superior Courthouse, attorneys for the victims of the Glendale crash alleged the Metrolink 901 engineer violated operating policy when he failed to immediately apply emergency brakes upon seeing the Jeep Cherokee.

The engineer noticed the Jeep when he was about three-quarters of a mile away, but did not apply full emergency brakes until about 870 feet from the point of impact — a lapse of about six seconds, alleged Jerome Ringler, the lead plaintiff attorney in the class-action lawsuit.

The new evidence was based on a deposition the engineer gave in December and corroborated by the train’s “black box,” which records onboard operations, Ringler said.

The testimony amounted to “an outright indictment of Metrolink operator error, and just like Chatsworth, these horrible accidents were caused by engineer operator error,” he said.

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The Wrongful Death Attorneys at Ringler Kearney Alvarez LLP want to help you get a better understanding of Wrongful Death and what it means to you.  Please review the following information and contact us immediately if you have a wrongful death claim.

What Is A Wrongful Death?

“Wrongful Death” can involve all types of circumstances, incidents, or accidents, any of which result in death, no matter what the cause. If the death was the result of negligence or wrongdoing, a claim for wrongful death can arise.

Who Is Entitled To Recover?

All surviving family members, including husbands and wives, parents and children, and brothers and sisters, are able to bring a claim. In some cases, financially dependent children, not related by blood, are also entitled to assert a claim.

How Does Wrongful Death Happen?

Any time the death of a loved one could have reasonably been prevented,a potential case of “wrongful” death exists. Typical cases include:

Medical malpractice resulting in immediate or eventual death of the patient

Automobile accidents with fatalities

Airplane crashes and other accidents involving common carriers, like trains or buses

Neglect or abuse by nursing home personnel that leads to the death of a resident

Premises liability cases where a death is involved

Supervised events, such as football games or class trips,where someone is responsible for the safety of those under their care and supervision

How Do You Quantify What Has Been Lost?

The answer is you can’t. It is not possible to put a dollar figure on the loss of a cherished loved-one. No money will adequately substitute for their presence. However, wrongful death cases usually calculate compensation based upon one or more of the following:

Economic damages, including loss of financial support or contributions the loved one would have made to surviving family members, lost income, and lost future income

Non-economic damages, including loss of love, companionship,comfort, and guidance, now missing as a result of the untimely death

General damages, including pain and suffering experienced by the deceased person

Medical bills

Funeral and burial expenses

You Can Help Us To Build A Case

In the difficult time immediately following the loss of a loved-one, you likely have a million things on your mind. You can, however, begin to build a case for yourself and your family by remembering to write down or journal your recollection of events and circumstances leading up to the passing of your family member. In medical malpractice or neglect cases, for example, answer such questions as:

Who was responsible for the care of your loved-one?

What were medical personnel supposed to be doing?

What did they actually do, or fail to do?

What did you see them do?

What do you recall medical or nursing home personnel saying?

What did your loved one say to you and when? (very important)

Who may have witnessed events leading up to the death?

As you go through the grieving process, remember that it is important to act quickly to preserve your legal rights. So don’t put off too long seeking out an experienced wrongful death attorney who can help you answer these questions.

Special Message for Victims of Chatsworth Metrolink Disaster

On September 12, 2008, an unprecedented tragedy occurred in Chatsworth, California when Metrolink Train #111 struck a Union Pacific freight train which was traveling on the same tracks. Our hearts go out to the victims. But this tragedy should not have happened. It happened because of human error on the part of Metrolink employees. Unfortunately, as the lawyers of RKA know well, human error by railroad engineers is not at all unique as a cause of commuter rail disasters.

Jerome L. Ringler has greater experience in representing victims of commuter rail and freight train disasters than any other lawyer in the State of California, if not the country. He has served as lead counsel in every one of the largest commuter rail disasters which have occurred in Southern California in the past 10 years.

In the Placentia Commuter Rail Disaster of 2003, Mr. Ringler was appointed by the Court as lead counsel for all of the Plaintiffs. He was requested by all of the lawyers representing individuals injured or killed in that incident to try the first case. That case resulted in the largest verdict for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ever rendered by a jury in the United States. That verdict, which was for $9 million, is detailed below in the multimedia section.

In the Burbank Commuter Rail Disaster, which also occurred in 2003, Mr. Ringler was again appointed by the Court to serve as lead counsel. In that capacity he was given the responsibility to try the entire liability (i.e., fault) case for all of the victims. In other words, every one of the dozens of lawyers who represented individual victims in that disaster trusted Mr. Ringler to try the liability phase for them, knowing that their clients would only recover if Mr. Ringler was successful. He was. In fact, Mr. Ringler not only obtained a favorable verdict for all of the plaintiffs, he obtained a $12 million verdict for his own client as well. This verdict was the largest in the State of California for a person with the type of injuries Mr. Ringler's client had suffered. This verdict is detailed below in the multimedia section.

Mr. Ringler is currently lead counsel for all plaintiffs in the Glendale Metrolink Derailment Disaster of 2005. This incident was, before September 12, 2008, the largest Metrolink disaster in history. Interestingly, in that case (which involves 11 deaths and dozens of serious injuries), Mr. Ringler has, against all odds, developed testimony proving that, even though a mentally-ill person placed a jeep across the tracks that the Metrolink train was traveling upon, human error on the part of the Metrolink engineer prevented him from stopping the train before hitting the jeep, which caused the train to derail. In other words, while the jeep certainly never should have been on the tracks, the Metrolink engineer would have been able to stop the train before ever striking the jeep had he only been paying proper attention. That case is scheduled to go to trial on June 8, 2009, with Mr. Ringler as lead counsel.

The verdicts detailed on this page were all obtained by Mr. Ringler and all relate to railroad litigation. However, Mr. Ringler has achieved enormous, record-breaking monetary awards across California in a variety of complex areas. Those accomplishments are detailed elsewhere in this website. To see them, click here.

If you or a loved one has suffered injury or death as a result of the horrific Chatsworth Metrolink Disaster, we are available to discuss your rights with you confidentially and at no charge.

Please feel free to contact us at your convenience. Ask for Mr. Ringler, or any of his partners, at (213) 473-1900.

There are a wide variety of injuries and claims which fall under the ambit of the general title of Personal Injury. We have established ourselves as a premier law firm by providing our clients with consistently excellent service. We pride ourselves on our intellect, creativity and tenacity. Our sophistication and depth of experience enables us to properly analyze even the most complex and novel legal theories, and deploy that analysis to our clients' benefit. Our substantial financial resources enable us to muster all necessary evidence and expertise to obtain the best result possible for each of our clients. We fight tirelessly for our clients, no matter the cost and no matter the foe.

Automobile Accidents

The most common and most well known of these claims are claims relating to automobile accidents. The automobile accident claim does not start with the filing of a lawsuit, but from the moment of the accident onward.

Our expert Pre-Litigation Staff gets involved from the moment you come to our office. We contact the insurance company to get your vehicle repaired as quickly as possible as well as starting the process for the injury claim.

Another important facet of establishing the automobile claim is getting the right doctors to make sure that you recover fully from your injuries and to try to help minimize your future suffering. Mesriani Law Group works only with the top medical professionals to insure that our clients get the very best medical care.

http://www.rkallp.com/specialty_areas.html

$7.5 million for an injured motorist who suffered brain damage and could not recall the accident, and where all witnesses ascribed fault to him.

$3.5 million for an unemployed 60-year-old man who lost an arm due to the negligence of a trucking company in loading a semi-trailer.

$2.9 million for a young female pedestrian who suffered a closed head injury when struck by a defendant's vehicle.

Complete access to our legal resources is available to every client.

A highly focused legal team lead by experienced attorneys is deployed to each specific case we encounter. Trial experts, demonstrative evidence experts, private investigators, jury consultants and mock trials add strength to our client's cases.

Our practice is limited exclusively to the representation of plantiffs on a contingency fee basis. As contingency fee based attorneys, compensation occurs only after money is recovered in the case, as regulated by law.