Fatal, CA, November 2 – A pedestrian died after being struck by two separate vehicles early Sunday morning in Visalia, according to the Visalia Police Department. The pedestrian was first hit by a vehicle traveling north, then struck again when a second vehicle, a Visalia police vehicle that was also heading north, reached the pedestrian while they were lying in the roadway. The pedestrian later died from the injuries sustained in the crash.
Visalia Pedestrian Dies After Being Struck by Two Vehicles on Mooney Boulevard
The crash occurred around 4:05 a.m. at the intersection of Mooney Boulevard and Beech Avenue, according to the Visalia Police Department. The first vehicle involved was traveling north on Mooney Boulevard when it struck the pedestrian. The second vehicle, a Visalia police vehicle that was also traveling north on Mooney Boulevard, entered the intersection and struck the pedestrian again while they were lying in the roadway.
The pedestrian was taken to Kaweah Health Medical Center after being struck by the two vehicles. Despite being rushed there for treatment, the pedestrian did not survive and succumbed to their injuries at the hospital. The Visalia Police Department has not said which of the two impacts caused the fatal injuries.
As of this report, the Visalia Police Department has not released the identity of the pedestrian or the drivers involved in the crash. It is also not known whether any citations were issued or what, if anything, caused either vehicle to strike the pedestrian. The department has not said whether the collision remains under investigation.
What California law requires of drivers around pedestrians
Vehicle Code section 21950 requires a driver to yield the right of way to a pedestrian crossing within any marked crosswalk, or within an unmarked crosswalk at an intersection. Subdivision (b) is the one people misread: a pedestrian may walk or run, and doing either does not forfeit the right of way.
Subdivision (c) puts a separate duty on the driver. A driver approaching a pedestrian in any crosswalk must exercise all due care and reduce the speed of the vehicle. That duty applies whether or not the pedestrian had the right of way, and subdivision (d) preserves it: nothing in the section relieves a driver of the duty to use due care for the safety of any pedestrian in the roadway.
The deadline that applies to a claim like this one
Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an action for injury to, or for the death of, an individual caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another. The same two years covers an injury claim and a death claim; there is no separate, shorter period because someone died.
Who is entitled to bring a claim when someone is killed
Code of Civil Procedure section 377.60 decides who may bring a wrongful death action. The first group is the surviving spouse, domestic partner, children and the issue of deceased children, or, where there is no surviving issue, whoever would take the estate by intestate succession.
A second group may bring the action only if they were financially dependent on the person who died: a putative spouse and their children, stepchildren, parents, and the legal guardians of the person who died where the parents are deceased. Parents are in that second group, which is the part families are most often surprised by, because dependency has to be shown rather than assumed.
If a public agency may be involved, the deadline is much shorter
Where a city, county, transit agency, school district or state agency is a potential defendant, Government Code section 911.2 requires a written claim to be presented to that entity within six months. The six months runs from when the claim accrues, and the claim is presented to the entity itself: a school district and a city are separate public entities with separate processes.
Two things follow that are easy to get wrong. The six months is the deadline to present the claim, not the deadline to sue, and it attaches to the public entity as a defendant rather than to the location of the crash, so a case with both a private and a public defendant is not entirely governed by it. Once the entity mails a written rejection, Government Code section 945.6 allows six months to file suit, which is shorter than the window that just closed. If no written rejection is ever sent, that period is two years from accrual.
Missing the six months is not automatically the end of it. Government Code section 911.6(b) requires the board to grant a late claim application on any of six grounds, including where the person was a minor, or was physically or mentally incapacitated, for the whole of the six months or for any part of it.
Talking to someone about it
Culver Legal represents people injured in collisions across California. A conversation about what happened costs nothing, and we work on a contingency fee, which means there is no fee unless we win. If we do not win, we do not pass the case costs on to you either.
Nothing on this page is legal advice about any particular case, and the facts of a reported collision often change as the investigation continues.
