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It was only last Saturday when news about a fiery limousine crash occurred in California surfaced. According to news reports, the blaze started to broke at the back of the limousine until the flames engulfed the entire stretch of the vehicle at around 10 o’clock in the evening.
Unfortunately, five passengers of the limousine including the 31-year-old newly-wed, Neriza Fojas, who were pressed against the vehicle’s small partition died from the incident while four others fortunately escaped the fire but were hospitalized. Meanwhile, the driver of the limousine, Orville Brown, was the only occupant of the vehicle who was left uninjured in the blaze.
Survivors of the fiery crash claimed that they were out to celebrate Fojas’ recent marriage when the supposedly joyful celebration turned tragic.
Following the single car crash, both the passengers of the vehicle and the driver were investigated. Consequently, in the statement provided by the limousine driver, he claimed that he helped all four of the surviving women to escape the fire. However, statements of the survivors contradict the driver’s claims.
Survivors recounted how they begged for help from the driver but the driver failed to do something to help them out of the vehicle. In fact, further statements given by the other drivers who witnessed the incident and stopped to help, backed the victims’ claims that the limousine driver was nowhere to be found when they were rescuing the trapped women.
Moreover, subsequent investigation has revealed that the burnt limousine was carrying nine passengers at the time of the accident. For the record, the state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) only authorized the said Limo to carry not more than eight passengers. Nevertheless, the authorities are not yet arriving into a concrete resolution to confirm that overcrowding is indeed a factor to the incident. Also, the agency further confirmed that Limo is licensed and has presented evidence of liability insurance.
So far, the agency is currently looking into whether the Limousine operator, Limo Stop, willfully misrepresented the seating capacity to the PUC. Therefore, victims are still waiting and hoping that the authorities may be able to determine who will be held liable for the incident sooner, so that they could finally mount proper claims against the negligent party / parties.
Under the tort law, when a person’s negligence has unfairly caused someone else to suffer injuries, damages or even death, victims are allowed to file a claim and recover their compensation for the loss, damages or death of loved ones that they have suffered. Therefore, if given by the circumstances that might arrive following the investigation, the victims may have all the right to file for a claim, explained by a Los Angeles injury attorney.
