CVN screenshot of plaintiffs' attorney Arash Homampour delivering his closing argument
San Bernardino, CA - A California state court jury awarded $33.85 million last week to the children of a man who died after being struck in the head with a shovel during an altercation with three street workers employed by the City of Victorville, and the full trial was webcast and recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Jose Ruvalcaba died in 2018 after an incident wherein police initially alleged he assaulted three workers painting roadway lines, however during the trial attorneys for his children argued the workers used unnecessary force against an unarmed individual.
Following the discovery of inconsistencies in witness statements initially made to law enforcement officials about the incident, the defense stipulated to liability with no contributory negligence assigned to Ruvalcaba, who was 45 at the time of death, leaving a San Bernardino County jury tasked solely with deciding the amount of damages that should be awarded to his five daughters.
Attorney Arash Homampour of The Homampour Law Firm, who represented the plaintiffs, told CVN after the trial that the jury’s eventual award of $33.85 million exceeded the defense’s highest settlement offer of $3.5 million.
Attorneys for the City of Victorville, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CVN, urged jurors to award the plaintiffs $2.5 million.
During the trial the defense argued Ruvalcaba, who they characterized as a transient methamphetamine addict, did not have a sufficiently close relationship with his children to justify an award in excess of $2.5 million - a claim that Homampour disputed.
“The jury disagreed and saw the true value of this amazing father’s love, the staggering loss to these young women and how one only needed to look at the beauty in and from them to see who he was,” Homampour said.
The full trial was webcast gavel-to-gavel by CVN, and is available to with a subscription to CVN’s online trial video library, which includes hundreds of civil trials from throughout the United States featuring many of the country’s top plaintiff and defense trial attorneys.
In addition to Homampour, the plaintiffs were also represented by Ronan Duggan, also of The Homampour Law Firm.
The City of Victorville was represented by Harvey Wimer and Victor Wear of Graves & King LLP.
Judge Brian McCarville presided over the trial.
The case is captioned Estate of Jose Ruvalcaba v. City of Victorville, case number CIVDS1920990, in the Superior Court of California in San Bernardino County.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com