Unarmed 21 year-old Nephi Arreguin was shot and killed back in 2015 while in his car in Cerritos, California by a police officer that was responding to a suspicious person call. The family of Arreguin aruged that the use of a firearm was unprovoked; the city argued that the deceased drove at the officer. Whatever the exact exchange between the two was, the city of Los Angeles has reached a settlement with Arreguin’s family to the tune of $1.5 Million.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the expensive settlements the city of Los Angeles has recently paid for police shootings, “Tuesday’s settlement follows the approval in July of nearly $5.4 Million to settle three wrongful death suits against the Sheriff’s department.” The Times goes on to note that over the last 5 years, settlement payouts of this nature amounted to close to $50 Million.

How is suing a city of government different than suing an individual or insurance company? The major difference that far too many people learn the hard way is that there are very strict and tight time limitations to getting a lawsuit against a city of government filed. Keep in mind that all that needs to be done to meet the important requirement is getting the case filed, nothing more. Here’s a look at the California wrongful death statute of limitations as it relates to various types of deaths:

• General– car accidents, products liability and other types of deaths that are caused by companies and/or individuals have a 2 year statute of limitations attached to them which means that the family of a deceased has two years from the time of the death to file a case against the offending party.
• Medical Malpractice– When there has been a death as a result of a medical error of some sort, the family has three years from the time of the injury or one year from when it should have been discovered
• Government– when it comes to suing the government, you only have 6 months to file your case.

Dealing with a wrongful death lawsuit is the last thing you want to be thinking about right now– we get that and as work hard to make sure that we take this worry off your plate. If you are dealing with an unjustified killing, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us today to discuss your case further.