San Luis Obispo, California Car Accident Lawsuit Headed to Trial

A car accident lawsuit that’s headed to a San Luis Obispo, California court alleges that it was a dangerous road that caused the accident as much as drugs and alcohol. Six years after the accident that left him with severe head and body injuries, Aaron Gurican, then just 17-years-old, is charging that the county maintained an unsafe road without streetlights that was at least partly responsible for causing the drunk driving accident.

On April 9th, 2002, Gurican was leaving his girlfriend’s house, on his motorcycle at night. He had no way of knowing that headed straight at him was a car driven by Mathew Wenz, also 17 years old. Wenz was in the wrong lane, and when his car slammed into the motorcycle, it knocked Gurican off. Wenz, it was found after the motorcycle accident, had been drinking, although his alcohol limit was .07, which is just below the legal limit for an adult of legal drinking age. However, Wenz was a minor, and any amount of alcohol in his system was too much. He had also been smoking pot earlier that day, it was found.

Wenz claimed he never saw Gurican, and thought he’d run over an animal in the dark. Gurican suffered extensive head injures, and today is confined to a wheelchair with very limited movement in his head and shoulders. He was wearing a helmet at the time of the car accident, but his motorcycle had an improperly functioning headlight. Gurican however, says he had a flashlight strapped onto the front of the motorcycle.

The lawsuit names not only Wenz, but also the San Luis Obispo County for his injuries. In earlier attempts to take the case to trial, Gurican’s attorneys had claimed that the stretch of road where the car accident occurred was dangerous, and had no streetlights. In addition, there were experts who came forward to testify on Gurican’s behalf, that the road was constructed in such a manner that motorists were encouraged to take a wrong turn. There was also a bush that blocked visibility, and this fact was confirmed by Wenz’s testimony, according to which, he never saw Gurican.

The court however, ruled that there was not enough evidence for Gurican to take the case to trial. Two years later, Gurican appealed, and that court found that the evidence indeed proved that the case could, in fact, go to trial.

Gurican’s jury trial will begin in December. The lawsuit cites a sum of $7 million in damages, as well as for expenses for taking care of Gurican who is expected to need care for the rest of his life. The county has refused to settle, and is looking forward to a trial, their attorneys say.

The county’s argument is that the responsibility for the car accident rests solely on the shoulders of Wenz and Gurican. The former was drunk, and even had drugs in his system, while the latter was driving without a proper headlight. Even so, there has been evidence that there was a design flaw in the dangerous road that enabled wrong turns, as well as helped lessen the degree of the turn. It seems like there was more than drugs, alcohol and a missing headlight that was at play in this California car accident.