This case involved a 4-year-old boy who was living on a large one-way street in San Francisco. Plaintiff was playing with a ball that rolled into the street. The little boy then chased the ball across the street and was hit by a vehicle owned by a pharmaceutical company. The plaintiff suffered a significant traumatic brain injury.

The defense claimed that this was a dart-out case in which the little boy came out from between two parked cars and the defendant never had a chance to see him in time to avoid the accident.

John D. Winer, who was an associate in another law firm at the time, handled a lot of the discovery and litigation in the case and the law firm was able to establish evidence that, even though the defendant could not see the boy in time to stop, he could see the ball rolling into the road in time to stop. Any reasonable driver who sees a ball rolling into a road will stop immediately knowing the likelihood that a child will be chasing it. A team of experts backed up this claim.

RESULT: Settlement for plaintiff $750,000