Call 911. The police report is the spine of a scooter case that gets built right.
Tell the responding officer where you were standing, walking, or riding. Point to the scooter. Get the device's serial number if you can read it, or photograph the QR code. That number ties the device to a specific ride and a specific account.
If there is any chance of a head strike, take the ambulance. A negative head CT on the day of the crash carries weight. Any later statement about how your head felt does not.
Photograph everything before anything moves. The scooter on the ground. The skid marks. The sidewalk crack or the pothole. The position of any vehicle involved. The traffic signal phase if you can capture it. The street name, the cross street, and the time of day.
Ask every witness for a name and a phone number before they walk away. People at the beach disappear back into traffic in five minutes. A witness statement at minute three is worth more than a witness statement at minute three hundred.
Do not give a recorded statement to the carrier or the rental company that day. Whatever you say will be quoted back at you for the next two years.
A scooter case rarely points at one defendant. A negligence claim may reach several parties.
The rider on a Bird or Lime is the most obvious. A rider who runs a stop sign carries personal liability. So does a rider who rides on a prohibited sidewalk. So does a rider who carries a passenger on a single-rider device. So does a rider under the influence. So does a rider who runs into the back of a stopped pedestrian.
The driver of a car that turned across the scooter rider's path is another. A California driver owes a duty of care to every lawful user of the road. That duty extends to the cyclist, the motorcyclist, and the scooter rider in a marked lane.
The rental company is a third. Bird, Lime, Lyft, and the others operate under user agreements that push liability back at the rider. That agreement is not the last word. A device with a failed brake or a sticking throttle can support a strict products liability claim. So can a wheel that detaches under load. So can a battery that ignites mid-ride. A negligent maintenance claim also may reach the company.
A public entity can be on the hook on the right facts. A sidewalk that was broken. A pothole that was reported and ignored. A missing curb cut. A roadway condition that created a hazard the city had notice of. The government claim has a short clock. That clock starts the day of the incident. It runs against the City of El Segundo, the City of Manhattan Beach, the City of Hermosa Beach, and LA County.
The pedestrian struck by a scooter on the Strand does not need to choose. Each potentially responsible party gets evaluated. The strongest path to a recovery is the one our trial team presses at deposition and at trial.
The general statute of limitations in California for a personal injury claim runs two years from the date of the incident. That is not the only clock.
A case involving a public entity has the government claim window attached. That includes a defective sidewalk owned by the City of El Segundo. It includes a road condition on a stretch of Highland maintained by the city. It includes a Caltrans on-ramp. The government claim has to be served within six months of the incident in most situations. Miss that window and the path to the public entity defendant narrows by an order of magnitude.
The rental company's user agreement is its own moving part. Most scooter operators bury an arbitration clause in the click-through agreement. They also bury a limitation period shorter than the general statute. Whether that agreement is enforceable against a particular rider depends on facts a court will decide.
Treating the date of the incident as the only deadline that matters is a mistake. Treating the six-month government claim window as the operative deadline is the safer posture.
Scooter cases run on data the public never sees.
The rental company keeps the GPS path of every ride. It keeps the speed by second. It keeps the acceleration and braking. It keeps the time the device was unlocked and the time it was returned. It keeps the rider's account history with the company. That data exists. It can be subpoenaed once a complaint and summons has been filed in the California Superior Court. It rarely shows up voluntarily.
Surveillance from the businesses along the route is the second layer. A camera over the door of a coffee shop on Main Street. A gas station camera on Sepulveda. A parking structure camera at the LAX Westin. A Ring camera at a private residence. Any of them may have caught the seconds before the impact. That footage gets overwritten on a cycle that often runs thirty days. A preservation letter sent in the first week pulls it out of the loop.
The scooter itself is the third. The device captures fault codes from the brake, the throttle, and the battery. If a mechanical failure contributed to the crash, the device has to be preserved as it sat at the scene. Once the rental company collects the device, the chain of custody runs through their hands.
Witness statements are the fourth. Independent witnesses are powerful corroboration. They vanish fast at the beach.
Medical records are the fifth. The connection between the date of the crash and the date of the first complaint of pain has to hold. A gap of weeks in treatment without a documented reason becomes an argument the defense rides through deposition and into trial.
A jury in California can consider several categories of damages on a scooter injury case.
Past and future medical expenses is the first category. It covers the emergency room visit. The imaging. The surgery if one was needed. The physical therapy. The durable medical equipment. The future surgery a treating physician projects. The future medication. The future rehabilitative care.
Past and future lost earnings is the second. It covers the wages the injured person could not collect during recovery. It also covers the future earnings the injury affects. A skilled trade affected by a wrist fusion is a different financial picture than the same wrist fusion in a desk role.
Past and future pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life are the third and fourth. These cover the experience of the injury beyond the dollars on the medical bills. A jury can consider what the injured person can no longer do that they used to do. A rider whose dominant hand cannot grip the same way again. A pedestrian whose ankle no longer permits the morning beach walk. A parent whose lower back will not tolerate lifting a toddler.
In a fatal scooter crash, the family can bring a wrongful death claim. The estate can bring a survival claim. The wrongful death pecuniary loss and the conscious pain and suffering on the survival claim are evaluated as separate categories.
The Strand is not a freeway. It is a shared path with rules that are routinely broken.
A scooter rider on the Strand at twice the posted speed creates a foreseeable risk of harm. So does a rider weaving past pedestrians. So does a rider ignoring a stop bar at a beach access point. So does a rider carrying a passenger on a single-rider device. The pedestrian who is struck is the kind of person the duty of care was built to protect.
The rider is one defendant. The rental company can be another. That includes the company that pushed the device into a saturated corridor without effective speed limits. It includes the company without sidewalk-detection logic. It includes the company without enforcement of single-rider use. The City of Manhattan Beach can be another. That applies where signage, lighting, or sightline conditions contributed.
Surveillance footage from the businesses backing onto the Strand is the lynchpin on most of these cases. So is the rider's account history with Lime. That history often shows a pattern of violations the company tolerated.
Yes. The case is governed by California law. It is filed in the California Superior Court in the county where the incident occurred. The injured person does not have to be a California resident. A visitor from Texas, Arizona, or Illinois can bring a personal injury claim for an injury that happened on a sidewalk in Manhattan Beach.
It matters less than you may think. California applies the pure comparative fault rule. A jury can apportion fault between the parties. A helmet question can factor into a head-injury portion of the case. It does not bar the claim. A rider partially at fault can still recover damages reduced by that percentage.
The ride is logged. The device's serial number ties back to a specific rider account. Photograph the device at the scene or read off the QR code. The rental company will not hand the rider's information over voluntarily. A complaint and summons filed in the California Superior Court and a subpoena directed at the rental company are the path to that name.
A claim against a city in California runs through the government claim process. The claim has to be served within six months of the incident in most situations. The public entity rejects the claim or fails to act on it in the required time. Then the path to the complaint and summons in the California Superior Court opens.
It is a hurdle, not always a wall. The rental company will push arbitration based on the click-through agreement. Whether the agreement is enforceable in a particular case depends on the facts a court evaluates. Our attorneys press the formation, the scope, and the unconscionability arguments where the facts support them.
The scooter gets picked up by the rental company. The carrier opens a file before the injured person is out of the emergency room.
Our attorneys send preservation letters in the first week. We send them to the rental company. We send them to the businesses along the route with cameras. We send them to the carrier on any private vehicle involved. Our trial team builds the case from intake forward as if a jury will hear every piece of evidence. Settlement on the right number is welcome. Settlement on a number that shortchanges a person hurt at no fault of their own is not.
The fee on a California personal injury case at our office is set on a contingency basis, pending firm-profile confirmation. The injured person owes nothing on the case until there is a recovery.
The scooter is already gone. The video is on a thirty-day loop. Let's get the case built with Bloom Injury Law before the other side closes the file.
If you've experienced an injury due to someone else's negligence, contact Bloom Injury Law today for a free consultation. Call (310) 525-5985 or contact us online.
