Elderly Driver Somehow Maneuvers Around Every Barrier Before Plowing into Store

While driving up to a Southern California grocery store, an elderly woman severely failed in her attempt to park her truck in an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) parking spot. She drove over a no-parking zone, zipped past two pillars, and accelerated her truck into the storefront. The vehicle blasted through the building's glass entrance. Black tire marks streaked across the glossy white tile, several checkout stands were destroyed, and nine people were injured — a few of them severely. Paper bags and groceries littered the floor in the truck's wake. At no point did the driver apply the brakes. It was only thanks to the grocer’s checkout stands, while colliding with people in the store, that the truck finally came to a stop.

Several of the grocer’s own employees were injured in the freak accident despite the owners having taken precautions to safeguard their storefront. Not only had the grocery store met its legal obligations to protect the area, but it had also gone above and beyond expectations by installing a network of safety features. Yet despite the speed bumps, the ‘no-parking’ zones, signs, wheel stops, pillars, and some bollards, the elderly driver had managed to slip past it all. No one could quite understand how she had managed to get through — let alone why she had accelerated into the store.

Despite the driver’s clear culpability, one of the victims pressed forward by also suing the grocery store for his injuries. He had been hit by both the truck and a checkout stand and was left with significant medical issues. The grocery store turned to their general counsel — Varner & Brandt, specifically litigation partner Angelica Acosta Samaniego— for help. Varner & Brandt, LLP had been advising the grocery store for decades, and the bond between the two was described as not just business, but familial. Thanks to the close relationship, Angelica was able to begin work on the case immediately. Her first objective was to determine what had happened and whether her client had any actual liability in the matter.

Angelica needed to know how the driver managed to drive her truck into the store. Forensically, it became difficult to recreate the incident because the truck had knocked out the entire CCTV system. Elements of the incident were strange, as well. The vehicle needed to have cleared 27 feet of sidewalk just to get into the store. The car also somehow managed to squeeze between two columns with less than three feet of clearance on either side. The tire marks showed the driver had accelerated and kept the wheel turned to the right throughout the incident. The driver offered no explanation, and Angelica doubted that a NASCAR driver could have recreated the bizarre crash.

To figure out what happened, Angelica assembled a team of experts in accident reconstruction, property management, ADA requirements, human factors, and medicine. However, she knew that without visuals, the details of the freak accident would likely confuse a jury. She needed a way for jurors not only to comprehend the accident speeds and measurements but also to see the layers of protection the grocer had put in place. She brought on DK Global to create an animation that depicted the uncanny accident in the context of all the visible signs and physical barriers the grocer had put in place.

The DK Global animation opened with an overhead view of the grocery store and its parking lot, along with photos of the location. Then, a 3D reconstruction of the store highlighted all the ADA signage, wheel stops, speed bumps, no parking zones, bollards, and pillars that secured the storefront. After this, the animation showed the black truck turning and accelerating into the store. The truck could be seen squeezing between the two pillars and driving over the no-parking zone while leaving tire marks. Then, an overhead view showed the truck plow into the store and crash into the checkout stands. Finally, the animation revealed the truck inside the grocery store along with photos taken by police.

The plaintiff refused to settle the case and took it to trial, where the grocer was named co-defendant alongside the elderly driver. The plaintiff's counsel argued that the grocer was at fault for not having placed additional bollards and sought over $24,000,000 in damages. Angelica played the DK Global animation for the jury, allowing them to see all the security precautions the grocer had already placed. In the end, the jury’s verdict assigned zero liability to the grocer; they found the driver 100% responsible and awarded the plaintiff $13,680,000. The grocery store’s CEO was immensely happy when Angelica told him the news.

Angelica Acosta Samaniego, partner at Varner & Brandt, focuses primarily on civil litigation involving businesses. Her public sector experience involved representation of numerous public entities in litigation matters, including governmental tort claims, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) matters, and defense of law enforcement in use-of-force cases. She has served as an attorney for Los Angeles’s Office of Independent Review (OIR) and as general counsel to the National Orange Show in San Bernardino.