Brentwood, CA, September 15 – Two 17-year-old Liberty High School seniors, Caden Kyle and Dominic Ferrari, died in a two-vehicle collision at Deer Valley Road and Balfour Road early Sunday morning, according to their families. The crash was reported around 12:20 a.m. on September 13 and also left two other people injured. Kyle and Ferrari were riding together in the same vehicle at the time of the collision.
Brentwood Crash Kills Two Liberty High School Seniors at Deer Valley and Balfour Roads
Kyle and Ferrari were passengers in a silver Infiniti that also carried a third Liberty High School student when it collided with a white BMW at the intersection. The exact circumstances of the collision have not been released. Emergency personnel who responded to the scene pronounced Kyle and Ferrari dead there; the third student in the Infiniti and the driver of the BMW were taken to a hospital, though their conditions have not been disclosed.
Kyle’s family and Ferrari’s family have each set up fundraiser pages to help raise funds following the crash. Liberty High School Principal Efa Huckaby notified students and staff of the deaths and said counseling and support services will be made available at the school in the aftermath of the collision.
The cause of the collision has not been made public, and no citations or arrests have been announced. The conditions of the surviving student and the BMW driver remain unknown, and it is unclear whether either vehicle’s occupants required extended hospitalization. Further details about the circumstances leading up to the crash have not been released.
What the at-fault driver is required to carry, and why it often is not enough
Vehicle Code section 16056 sets California’s minimum liability limits, and they changed recently. For a policy issued or renewed on or after 1 January 2025, the minimum is $30,000 for injury to or death of one person, $60,000 where two or more people are hurt, and $15,000 for property damage. Policies written before that date may still carry the older minimum of $15,000, $30,000 and $5,000.
Those are floors, not typical limits, and a single hospital admission can exhaust the lower figure before any other loss is counted. Where the at-fault driver carries the minimum, the uninsured and underinsured motorist cover on the injured person’s own policy is often the part that matters most, and it is worth checking early rather than after the other insurer has made an offer.
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.
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.
