Chatsworth, CA, September 16 – Authorities have identified two people who died after an SUV collided with a Los Angeles Metro bus, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner and the Los Angeles Fire Department. The victims, both passengers aboard the bus, were identified as Gage Weida, 31, and Daniel Castillo, 46. Six other people were taken to a hospital for treatment following the crash, officials said.
Chatsworth Officials Identify Two Killed in Metro Bus and SUV Crash
The crash happened at approximately 5:02 p.m. on September 15 in the 20900 block of West Nordhoff Street in Chatsworth. The Metro Line 166 bus was traveling eastbound on Nordhoff Street when it was struck by an SUV traveling southbound on De Soto Avenue, according to Los Angeles Metro. Both people who died had been riding the bus at the time of the collision, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to the scene along with other emergency crews. Authorities said Wednesday that the SUV’s driver, a 36-year-old woman, had been arrested and booked on suspicion of murder, with bail set at $4 million. The circumstances that led to the collision had not been detailed as of that announcement.
The conditions of the six people taken to the hospital have not been publicly released. Authorities have not disclosed what led the SUV to collide with the bus, and no further details about the events preceding the crash have been made available. It also remains unclear whether the driver has been formally charged beyond the murder booking reported by authorities.
Why evidence in a commercial vehicle case has a deadline of its own
A collision involving a commercial vehicle is not simply a larger car accident. The carrier holds records the other driver never has: electronic logging data, maintenance and inspection history, dispatch instructions and driver qualification files.
Those records are the best evidence of what happened and they do not last indefinitely. Retention periods are measured in months for some categories, so the window to preserve them can close long before the deadline to file a lawsuit does. A preservation demand sent early is the step that keeps them available.
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.
