James Bagley filed a personal injury and property damage lawsuit in California State Court following a case that stemmed from the crash of a glider tow plane. His case was previously filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Southern California.

Bagley alleged the glider’s operator violated federal aviation regulations when he caused the plane to crash directly into the ground. He claimed the case should be tried in state court, because the federal court lacked jurisdiction over the case. The District Court approved the plaintiff’s motion to remand the case, noting the plaintiff did not “have a private federal remedy, because Congress did not include a federal cause of action for personal injury suits in the FAA [the Federal Aviation Act].”

Our personal injury attorneys at Ritter & Associates provide legal services for our clients in San Diego and other areas in California. We handle personal injury accident cases involving maritime law, motorcycle accidents, motor vehicle accidents, and wrongful death, among others. Call our offices today at (619) 296-0123 to learn more about your options.

The San Diego County District Attorney’s Office has reported that William Frank Bogard, 25, has apologized to the police officer he hurt by running him over with his own police squad car back in January 2015.

Bogard, who was charged and convicted of a number of charges, was sentenced to 20 years and four months of imprisonment. His violations included two counts of murder with personal use of a deadly weapon and personal infliction of great bodily injury, one count of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of residential burglary with a hot prowl allegation, theft of a police car, felony vandalism, and resisting an executive officer. Deputy District Attorney Michael Runyon said Bogard made a guilty plea to four strikes.

The police officer who was struck down by his own patrol car was identified as Officer Jeremy Swett. He was interviewing witnesses of a disturbance outside a house in the 3600 block of Main Street in Barrio Logan when Bogard ran him over with his own squad car. Bogard was fined $304,576.12 in restitution to the city of San Diego for Swett’s medical bills and for damage to the two squad cars.

Aside from being emotionally traumatized by a personal injury accident, a victim is also left to deal with extreme physical pain and financial problems brought on by the burden of having to shoulder expensive medical bills. If you have had the misfortune of being hurt in a personal injury accident in San Diego, do not hesitate to seek the legal help of our attorneys at Ritter & Associates by calling our offices today at (619) 296-0123.

While Los Angeles, California has put real effort into becoming less dependent on automobiles for daily transportation, a local law firm still found that the city is outpacing others in the Golden State for their number of vehicular accidents.

According to the report, Los Angeles has 221 of the 444 most dangerous intersections in California, including eight of the top 10 and 17 of the top 20. In short, a whopping 90% of the most dangerous intersections in California can be found in Southern California where LA is located.

The top spot for most dangerous is taken by the intersection at Devonshire and Reseda, where 41 injuries were listed across 24 accidents in 2015—luckily, none were fatalities. Second place goes to the intersection at Dockweiler Beach of Imperial Highway and Vista Del Mar.

Our attorneys at Ritter & Associates, who provide legal services in San Diego or other areas in California, are here to provide legal services to our clients who have become victims of personal injury accidents. Seek the legal representation of our most trusted and competent attorneys today by calling our offices at (619) 296-0123.

Fifty-one-year-old Ramona, California resident Roy Dunkin made a guilty plea to driving drunk and causing a fiery two-vehicle collision on Friday, November 4 along State Route 67 on August 20, 2016, that killed 24-year-old Lucas Riley.

According to Deputy District Attorney Cally Bright, Dunkins will spend five years and 10 months of an 11-year, 8-month sentence in prison, based on how the law is set up.

According to court documents, Dunkin initially drove past a stop light, causing a collision with another vehicle and injuring three people. He then proceeded to drive along California State Route 67 and veered off the roadway before crashed head-on into Riley’s Mini Cooper; Riley became trapped inside his car while flames enveloped his vehicle, with Bright noting, “[Riley] literally had no chance.”

Riley, who was a graduate of San Diego’s Point Loma Nazarene University, died at the scene of the accident.

Riley’s father, Mark, said laws regarding DUIs should be strengthened, noting, “We have a cultural problem, so what has to happen, is the law has to be put in perspective with what is happening. These are murders. These are not accidents. These are willful incidents. Unfortunately, they keep happening.”

Our attorneys at Ritter & Associates, who provide legal services for our clients in San Diego or other areas in California, handle personal injury accident cases involving product liability, motor vehicle accidents, pool accidents, auto accidents, and premises liability, among others. Call our offices today at (619) 296-0123.

A collision between a bus and a tractor-trailer that occurred along Interstate 10 in Palm Desert, California last Sunday, October 23 resulted in the death of 13 people and injured 31 others.

According to California Highway Patrol records, the tour bus involved in the accident, called USA Holiday, was at one point found unsatisfactory in different aspects, though it had not received a negative rating since 2010. At that point, an unnamed company driver got an “unsatisfactory” rating overall due to “controlled substance and alcohol testing results.”

Also, CHP motor carrier safety program manager Cullen Sisskind told The Associated Press that the driver involved in the accident did not have a failing overall inspection record. Sisskind noted “This is not out of the norm. Commercial motor vehicle operation and the requirements that go along with that are complex and extensive.” USA Holiday received unsatisfactory ratings for maintenance, equipment, and issues involving a driver from 2005 through 2008.

CHP officers identified the 13th fatality last Tuesday, October 25.

The National Transportation Safety Board is discussing a new development concerning the tour bus that crashed in Desert Hot Springs near Palm Springs. The USA Holiday bus crashed in Riverside County in California on Sunday, October 23, which resulted in the death of 13 individuals, while 31 more sustained injuries.

According to authorities, two of the eight tires on the bus did not have enough tread, and as such the bus was not in compliance with vehicle safety standards. NTSB member Earl Weener said the agency came to this conclusion after a careful examination of the motor coach body and wheels. The tires of the bus, which were manufactured by different auto-part makers, did not meet Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspection criteria.

At Ritter & Associates, we defend clients who sustained injuries in accidents through no fault of their own. Contact us at (619) 296-0123 to discuss your personal situation and see what our talented attorneys can do to help you.

A pending acquisition at the top of German multinational and pharmaceutical company Bayer AG’s shopping list, the $66 million agreement to purchase St. Louis, Missouri-based multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation Monsanto Co., may trap Bayer into a web of ongoing environmental lawsuits, attorneys told Bloomberg BNA.

The deal will connect Bayer to litigation concerning Monsanto’s earlier production of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as well as its cleanup liabilities, even though terms of the sale are geared toward creating a firewall against the liabilities, attorneys said. They noted that this is because a purchaser in a genuine merger receives both the assets and the liabilities of the purchase.

German legislators are urging the European Commission to pull back the scope of the deal, which will also have to be approved by United States antitrust regulators.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs from San Francisco and San Diego, are continuing litigation against Monsanto over public waterway contamination due to the presence of PCBs, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says can cause liver damage and respiratory problems.

When a company releases a toxic pollutant into the environment, it is possible to hold that company accountable for the resulting toxicity injuries you and your family endure. If you had been hurt due to toxic circumstances in San Diego or other areas in California, enlist the legal services of our attorneys at Ritter & Associates by calling our offices today at (619) 296-0123.

Airline flights within, from, and to the United States are banning Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, which were manufactured by Samsung. The flights are under an emergency order announced on Friday, October 14 by the Department of Transportation in response to reports of said devices spontaneously combusting and catching fire.

Samsung has already issued a recall of over 2.5 million units of the smartphone due to a battery manufacturing error. One instance of this occurred when a Jeep owned by a family in St. Petersburg, Florida caught fire when a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphone was left charging in the vehicle. Samsung also encouraged owners of the defective smartphone to get a refund or exchange their phones by visiting a Samsung outlet near them. At least three American airlines are including new fire-suppression equipment on their fleets in the event that a cellular phone or laptop battery overheats and catches fire.

If you are severely injured and your finances are depleted as a result of medical bills you incurred to treat the physical liabilities you sustained during your personal injury accident, your plight is not totally hopeless. The San Diego attorneys at Ritter & Associates can help you file the appropriate lawsuit to pursue financial compensation. Call our offices today at (619) 296-0123 to learn more about your legal options.

The California Supreme Court ruled last Wednesday, September 21 that the court should hear the appeal of a lawsuit filed against San Francisco-based customer review website Yelp. A San Francisco law firm filed the initial lawsuit against Yelp, who says this case can spell the difference between free and controlled speech.

Yelp says if the initial 2013 ruling made by Judge Donald Sullivan is implemented, it will create a precedent for businesses or private companies to ask the courts to have negative reviews against them taken down, even if said reviews are legitimate. Sullivan’s ruling ordered Yelp to take down a negative review of the suing law firm,

The personal injury attorneys at Ritter & Associates provide legal services to clients in San Diego and other areas of California, including civil rights cases and other legal matters. Call our offices today at (619) 296-0123 to discuss your situation and learn more about the legal options available to you.

A report released on Tuesday, September 20 by the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group said as many as 90% of public water systems in the United States contain the carcinogen chromium-6, which could endanger the lives of more than 200 million Americans.

Local and state officials, however, disagree about conclusions drawn out  by the report. Sparta Mayor Christine Quinn said to the New Jersey Herald in an email on Thursday, September 22: “It is my understanding that the source of the recent [report] circulating regarding Chromium-6 in drinking water is a study performed by an advocacy group that elected to develop its own contamination levels, rather than utilizing actual Federal EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] drinking water standards.”

Because of their stricter standards, the group may have caused “findings and a level of public concern that are not based on any currently established regulations,” Quinn said. New Jersey and other states still have no chromium-6 standards of their own and they are currently following the federal limit of 100 parts per billion, which covers not only chromium-6, but also chromium-3, which is a naturally occurring metal found in small rocks.

A personal injury accident can cause major difficulties in your life at the snap of a finger. To make matters a little easier for you, our attorneys at Ritter & Associates in San Diego can help you recover financial compensation from the individuals responsible for your accident so you can focus on your rehabilitation. Call our offices today at (619) 296-0123 to learn more about your legal options.