California Family Sues Amazon After 2-Year-Old is Killed by Delivery Driver

A California family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Amazon after their two-year-old daughter was struck and killed by a delivery van in 2022. An attorney for the family says that Amazon is denying responsibility for the accident and instead blaming the third-party delivery company.

In August of 2022, the two-year-old girl was struck and killed by an Amazon delivery truck while playing outside of her Irvine apartment complex. The driver remained at the scene of the accident, but the damage done to the young girl was catastrophic. The grieving family reports that there are no words to describe the amount of pain that they are in after witnessing the accident. The mother reports that she is having difficulty sleeping at night. She reports that she and her children and husband are having nightmares over the accident.

The family’s attorney claims that Amazon is refusing to turn over dashcam footage of the accident or any other information without a confidentiality agreement. Amazon also claims that because the company was contracted through a third party, Amazon is not liable for the accident.

Is Amazon liable for the conduct of its delivery drivers?

Amazon does a lot of interesting things to insulate itself from liability. In this case, Amazon hires third-party delivery companies to satisfy orders. In other words, the companies that deliver goods to customers are not technically part of the corporate conglomerate that is Amazon. Amazon wants the liability to fall on this third-party company as opposed to Amazon itself.

However, Amazon exerts a significant amount of control over its third-party delivery companies. Through the use of an app, Amazon ensures that deliveries are made in a timely fashion and that their drivers are not falling “behind the rabbit” (the term used on the app to describe a situation where the driver is not making deliveries quickly enough). Attorneys for plaintiffs in Amazon trucking lawsuits have argued that Amazon is contributing to a situation where their drivers drive at unsafe speeds and carelessly in order to satisfy orders in a timely fashion. This has led to numerous injuries and lawsuits against Amazon.

Whether or not Amazon can be held liable for such accidents will need to be determined by the courts. Amazon appears poised to fight these lawsuits as aggressively as they possibly can. For example, Amazon is saying that they have no liability over their third-party delivery companies, but they also seem to have the power to refuse to submit dashcam footage of the accident to the plaintiffs. When determining whether or not Amazon is liable for these accidents, the courts will investigate how much control Amazon exerts over the individual drivers and the companies that they work for.

Talk to an Oakland, CA Truck Accident Lawyer Today

Venardi Zurada represents the interests of those injured or killed by commercial delivery vehicles. Call our Oakland, CA truck accident lawyers today to schedule a free consultation, and we can begin discussing how you could recover damages related to your medical expenses, lost wages, and reduced quality of life.

Source:

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