2221 Camino Del Rio S, Ste. 207, San Diego,CA 92108 • 619-444-2244    Free Phone Consult

Personal Injury • Business Law • Civil Litigation
2221 Camino Del Rio S, STE. 207
San Diego, CA

619-444-2244 

Free Consultation

Author: Steven Elia

Mr. Elia has extensive litigation experience having appeared at more than 1,000 civil hearings including jury and bench trials, over 500 depositions, and hundreds of mediations. Some of his cases have made national headlines. He specializes in personal injury, business law and civil litigation in and around San Diego.

Breakthrough Spinal Cord Injury Research at UC San Diego

Written on . Posted in Other Injuries.

UPDATE: August 20, 2020
“In a new study, published August 5, 2020 in Cell Stem Cell , researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report successfully implanting highly specialized grafts of neural stem cells directly into spinal cord injuries in mice, then documenting how the grafts grew and filled the injury sites, integrating with and mimicking the animals’ existing neuronal network.” Read more on the UCSD website.

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Spinal cord injury research is always evolving, and news from UC San Diego gives even more hope to people with spinal cord injuries.

UCSD scientists say they have discovered a way to enable nerve fibers to grow AFTER a severe spinal cord injury has occurred. Their study was conducted on rats. Scientists used stem cells – in the form of a gel application – to rewire the rats’ central nervous systems, allowing them to grow new nerve cells and to regain some movement in the areas below their spinal cord injuries.

The next step?

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What to Do After a San Diego Bicycle Accident

Written on . Posted in Bicycle Accidents.

Are you a cyclist who has recently been injured on the road due to driver negligence? You may deserve compensation.

Unfortunately, bicycle accidents are not few and far between. According to a report by the California Department of Public Health, there were over 84,000 non-fatal bicycle injuries involved with a motor vehicle in California between 2007-2013. About 7% of those happened in San Diego alone.

Bicycle

Accidents happen. But when negligence is involved, protect yourself by hiring a skilled lawyer from a firm like Elia Law Firm, APC.

Road accidents involving cyclists and motor vehicles are often due to driver negligence. Blatant disregard of traffic signs and bicycle lanes, or erratic behavior like speeding, can result in serious injury, or even death. Alcohol involvement can also increase the risk for accidents. So what do you do if this happens to you?

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Who Is at Fault in a Motorcycle Lane Splitting Accident in California?

Written on . Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents, Motorcycle Safety.

If you’ve been injured in such an accident, should you be compensated?

Read on as San Diego personal injury attorney, Steven Elia, sorts it out for you.

Have you ever sat in traffic and watched a motorcycle whiz by between lanes? That’s called lane splitting and, while it’s not technically legal in San Diego or anywhere in the state of California, it’s completed accepted.

San Diego lane splitting attorney

What happens if an accident occurs while a motorcycle is lane splitting? Who is at fault?

This is a muddy area in the state of California and one that should involve the professional advice of a San Diego motorcycle accident attorney. But let’s see if we can shed some light on it here.

Lane splitting accidents are quite common, especially here in Southern California, including San Diego, where traffic can be a real headache. These accidents happen because of the close proximity of cars to the passing motorcycle. There is very little space to maneuver, and many drivers simply don’t anticipate that a motorcycle might be passing them by.

When a lane splitting accident happens, the fault is usually attributed to the motorcycle rider, but this is dependent on what the insurance adjuster and court find.

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Oceanside – 12 Year-Old Boy on Bike Hit by Truck and Killed

Written on . Posted in Bicycle Accidents, News.

San Marcos Bicycle Accident

A 12-year-old boy was riding his bike Thursday morning when he was struck by a pickup truck pulling out of a driveway at a local RV park. The driver heard a thump but continued driving until he circled back around to see what the source of the sound was. Sadly, he found the boy under his truck.

Paramedics were called in and arrived a short time later to perform CPR on the boy who was unconscious but breathing. The boy was airlifted to Tri City Hospital and died a few minutes later. No one else was hurt in the crash.

There Are Laws to Prevent This

Unfortunately, death or extreme injury is all too common when cyclists meet 2-ton vehicles on the road, and this is why we have traffic laws. So what is the law that could have protected the boy in this situation?

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San Diegan Stephen Michael Clift killed in bicycle accident

Written on . Posted in Bicycle Accidents, News.

Stephen Clift was on a literal cross-country bicycle journey to raise awareness to the rights of U.S. military veterans when he was hit and killed by a car in Groom, Texas and died in Amarillo a short time later. The bicycle trip was called “March Across America for Homeless Veterans.” The driver who rear-ended him admitted looking away and never seeing Clift’s bicycle before he ran him down.

In an article at www.peoplestribune.org, Clift said he riding to bring attention to how “American citizens have shamefully and quietly passed by thousands of homeless and needy veterans living on the streets of our small towns, the steam grates of our teeming cities, and in the canyons and wilds of suburbia from Washington, D.C. to the shores of California.”

A video of him on his journey appears below. You can hear trucks and cars whizzing very close by, and he relates just having ridden through a hailstorm. You can get a sense of the danger cyclists face when they share the roads with cars in this video.

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Is the DUI conviction enough to prove the drunk driver is at fault?

Written on . Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents.

You’re in an accident. The other driver was drunk and subsequently convicted of a DUI charge. Is he/she at fault? Is your case a slam dunk?

Establishing proof is an important part of both civil and criminal cases, but as any attorney will tell you, proving your case is easier said than done. When there is the concurrence of both civil and criminal litigation surrounding the same case, however, criminal charges can weigh heavily on the outcome of a civil lawsuit and speed up the judgment and settlement to the benefit of the plaintiff. Here’s how.

Injured man getting into ambulance
A serious accident can put your life on hold.

What It Takes to Win a Criminal Case

In a criminal trial, the prosecution is required to prove that the defendant committed an act beyond a reasonable doubt. This means that when presented with a body of evidence, a guilty verdict is handed down because no reasonable doubt exists based on the facts.

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Drunk felon, no seat belt, no driver’s license, no insurance, and he was speeding, but we win $800K for him.

Written on . Posted in Motor Vehicle Accidents.

How did we do it? And why?

On March 15, 2015, we settled a motor vehicle roll-over accident that occurred in El Cajon, CA.  In this case, our client’s blood alcohol was more than double the legal limit in California, methamphetamine was found in his system, two open forty ounce bottles of beer were found in his car, and he had no drivers license or insurance at the time of the crash.  We did however manage to find a way to obtain compensation for our client.

But wait there’s more – the defense accident reconstructionist opined our client was driving over 70mph in a 40mph zone.  He had been “partying” all night long and was leaving a liquor store at 9:00 AM when the accident occurred.

El Cajon auto accident crashed car

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Urine soaked lampposts smash San Francisco cars. San Diego may be next.

Written on . Posted in Public Safety.

Fido and dog’s best friend share the blame for this accident

Here’s a somewhat amusing story. In San Francisco a lamp post falls on a car while its driver waited for a green light at the intersection of SF’s Pine and Taylor streets. No one is injured. There is no wind, no sign of vandalism, and no earthquake behind the incident. Why did the lamp post fall? Corrosion brought on by urine. Yes, urine. Dog and possibly dog’s best friend’s urine rusted the base of the lamp post until the weight of a flag was enough to snap it at the base. Needless to say, the internet had a howl with the story.

The driver of the car, however, was “pissed.”

Dog urine destroying lampposts in San Diego

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CHP Nearly Hits Cyclist on Glendora Mountain Rd. then Defends Actions

Written on . Posted in Cycling Safety.

Cop harasses cyclist in San Diego

This officer’s actions are one problem, but a symptom of an even bigger one

On July 11th Ken Adams and another person were cycling Glendora Mountain Road/Glendora Ridge Road, a paved one-laner that loops around from Glendora toward Mt. San Antonio (AKA Mt. Baldy), when the CHP officer you see in the video passed by them. The SUV was about two feet away when it passed them, and later the same CHP SUV passed them again, coming even closer to hitting the cycling pair. Shortly after that, the patrol vehicle turned and came at the cyclists from the front. You can hear for yourself just what the officer had to say about his performance in the video taken after the officer U-turned to have a chat. Finished watching? Good. Here’s where he’s wrong.

Cop harasses cyclist in San Diego

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2221 Camino Del Rio S, Ste. 207
San Diego, CA
(We are located very near the University Heights area.)

(619) 444-2244

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