An 11-year-old boy has been named as a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit involving the death of a 4-year-old boy after an e-bike struck an SUV.
According to the lawsuit, the 11-year-old was riding his e-bike with his 10-year-old sister in Burlingame, California, near San Francisco on August 8, 2024. The bike collided with the back of an SUV which was exiting a parking lot. The 19-year-old driver of the SUV accidentally accelerated after the collision, going over a curb across the street and killing 4-year-old Ayden Fang.
Prosecutors in San Mateo declined to pursue charges related to the death, but Fang’s parents have now brought a wrongful death lawsuit against both the 19-year-old driver, the 11-year-old e-bike rider, both of their parents, and the city of Burlingame, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
While it’s unusual for a child to be named in a wrongful death lawsuit as a defendant, it’s not unprecedented as the law does not establish a universal minimum age for legal liability. Rulings holding young children accountable for negligence are rare.
In California, the courts have generally maintained that children under the age of five cannot be found negligent, but that doesn’t prohibit plaintiffs from naming them in civil cases.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the state uses a framework referred to as the “Rule of Sevens,” which stipulates that children under seven are presumed incapable of negligence, and those between seven and 14 are presumed capable, but a compelling argument can prove otherwise. Children over the age of 14 are presumed capable of negligence.
Anh Phoong, a personal injury attorney, told the Chronicle that she was not aware of any cases in which a child as young as 11 has been successfully sued, though noted some instances may have been settled out of court.
The complaint alleges that the children who struck the SUV caused its driver to accidentally hit the accelerator rather than the brake, which caused her to drive forward unexpectedly. The vehicle reportedly reached 27 miles per hour before leaving the parking area, according to the lawsuit.
Ayden had been playing outside at the time of the crash. The complaint says Ayden’s parents rushed outside to find him pinned beneath the SUV. Tragically, he died at the scene of the crash.
“Ayden was cheated of his years,” Ming Fang, Ayden’s father, told Fox 2. “My wife and I were cheated of the sacred right of parents, watching their child grow from a toddler into a teenager and into an adult.”
The lawsuit claims that the 11-year-old defendant was operating the bike outside of the vehicle manual’s recommended minimum ride age of 12-years-old. It also accuses the child’s parents of negligence for allowing him to ride the bike in areas with vehicle traffic.
Some models of e-bikes can reach speeds of more than 20 miles per hour and there are no minimum age-limit laws regulating who can use the vehicles.
The plaintiffs have also accused the SUV driver of being inexperienced, noting she had only recently obtained her driver’s license. The lawsuit also claims the driver was taking medications at the time of the crash that could have impaired her judgement.
The city of Burlingame was also named in the lawsuit and has been accused of failing to address safety concerns at the site of the accident. The lawsuit claims that the driveway where the incident occurred has visibility problems preventing drivers from seeing oncoming traffic.
The filing claims that city has received nearly a dozen complaints about the parking lot’s layout in the years prior to the incident.
Fang said the lawsuit is not only intended to seek accountability for the accident but also to push the city to implement better protections for pedestrians.
“It pains me to think about Ayden’s smile, his hugs and his kisses,” Fang said. “But we hope this litigation will help make sure another family does not suffer the same unimaginable pain.”
