Some tragedies are the product of pure chance. Others result from a hazard someone knew about and failed to fix. Randall H. Scarlett has spent nearly four decades proving that difference to juries.
The founder of San Francisco’s Scarlett Law Group, Scarlett has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America® every year since 2009 for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs, and has secured hundreds of millions of dollars for people whose lives were permanently changed by preventable negligence. This fall, he and his son, partner Randall A. Scarlett, will try a wrongful death and catastrophic injury case against the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) before a San Benito County jury.
- A fatal Highway 101 crash raises urgent questions about whether a known tree hazard could have been prevented.
- Scarlett Law Group represents a family facing wrongful death claims, a severe traumatic brain injury and lifelong care needs.
- The firm cites prior verdicts of $49.1 million and $18.6 million in dangerous-roadway cases involving public entities.
- Read how detailed investigation, accident reconstruction and trial preparation shape this high-stakes Caltrans case.
The case arises from a December 2022 collision on Highway 101. According to the complaint, a eucalyptus tree fell across the highway and was cleared from the roadway; within 24 hours, a second tree from the same grove came down into traffic. The complaint alleges that the grove constituted a dangerous condition of public property and that Caltrans failed to address the hazard after the first tree fell.
Ezequiel Sanchez, riding in the front passenger seat, was killed. His fiancée, Brianna Avina, survived with catastrophic injuries, including a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), that will require care for the rest of her life. The couple’s two young children—one of them born after his father’s death—are plaintiffs in the wrongful death case, and another passenger was also seriously injured.
“There is no prosthesis for the brain,” says Randall H. Scarlett, a founding member of the Brain Injury Association of California who has spent his career teaching juries to understand TBI. “When it’s damaged, the person someone used to be can be lost in ways no scan fully captures. In every case we take, our job is to make that loss real and undeniable in a courtroom.”
Dangerous-roadway litigation against the state is familiar ground for the firm. In Bianchi v. Gordon Trucking (2009), Scarlett secured a $49.1 million verdict for a young man who sustained a severe brain injury in a collision involving a dangerous condition on Highway 152—still among the largest verdicts ever returned by a Santa Clara County jury. In Almanza v. State of California (2015), the firm won an $18.6 million verdict for the family of a man killed on State Route 156, a case that likewise involved a dangerous roadway condition.
“Cases against public entities are among the hardest fought we handle,” says Randall A. Scarlett, recognized on the Best Lawyers Ones to Watch list for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs. “They are vigorously defended, and they demand that we be ready for trial from day one. That is exactly how this case has been prepared.”
Preparing a case like this is neither quick nor inexpensive. “We invest hundreds of hours in discovery and accident reconstruction, and we use technology and demonstrative evidence to give juries the complete and accurate story,” says Randall H. Scarlett, a former president of the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys. With a trial date now set, the firm is ready.
For the Scarletts, the stakes reach past a single verdict. “Our clients turned to us to be their voices in the courtroom, and that is an honor,” says Randall A. Scarlett. “Cases like this one are also about the road ahead. When roadway safety is examined in open court, every family that travels those highways stands to benefit. That is the outcome we work for.”
The firm distills this commitment into a single line: Every case prepared for trial. Every client prepared for life.
