Apr 23, 2015
That’s what happened on an August morning in 2013. Amelie Le Moullac was bicycling on her way to work when a truck careened into her bike lane. Amelie did not survive the collision. Our founder Bill Veen and attorney Jeremy Cloyd joined co-counsel Micha Liberty in seeking justice for Amelie and her parents in a hard-fought month long trial. Defendants blamed Amelie for her death, arguing she was distracted and should have swerved to avoid the merging truck. The jury rejected these arguments and found the truck driver 100% at fault for the tragedy. We won Amelie’s family a verdict of $4 million against the negligent truck driver and his employer. This verdict cannot make up for the loss of then 24-year-old Amelie, but it provides her family a measure of justice, recognizing that her death was not her fault and should have been avoided. We also sought to establish that San Francisco bike lanes, like other traffic lanes, cannot be blindly merged into without yielding to the people already there. This was a vital victory to helping ensure the safety of roadways for everyone who works, lives and plays in San Francisco. For our work on the case of Amelie Le Moullac, we were honored as finalists for Trial Lawyer of the Year by the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association. It was the fifth year in a row that a Veen Firm attorney was so honored. We want to congratulate all of the finalists and this year’s winner Gil Purcell of Brayton Purcell for his excellent work and a well-deserved award. For more information, please check out this video about this important case, which was shown at the SFTLA awards ceremony this month.
