An 89-year-old retired San Francisco schoolteacher who shattered her pelvis, femur and shoulder blade in a city paratransit van fall is now racing the court calendar, because under California law her family could lose most of what her injuries are worth if she dies before a jury reaches a verdict. Libby Thaler was hurt in May when the van suddenly stopped as she was returning from medical treatment, and the driver had failed to secure her to her wheelchair.
Thaler's case, first detailed by the San Francisco Chronicle, lands at an unusually fraught moment for California tort law. Under the state's survival-action statute, pain-and-suffering damages legally die with the victim unless a final judgment or verdict is rendered while the plaintiff is still alive, according to LaCour Trial Lawyers. For severe injuries like Thaler's, pain and suffering often makes up more than 80% of total damages, per the Chronicle's reporting, which means her family stands to recover only a fraction of her case's value if she doesn't survive to trial.
Thaler was returning from treatment for severe kidney disease and hypertension when the van came to its sudden stop in May. She also had a stroke in 2023 and has since been diagnosed with hypertension and early-stage blood cancer, according to the Chronicle. Despite her health struggles, she still organizes a choir in her assisted-living community and publishes a newsletter called Frankly Speaking, her lawyer told the paper.
A Legal Window That Just Slammed Shut
California has allowed family members to seek damages after a wrongfully injured person's death since 1949, but it has otherwise denied compensation for a deceased relative's own pain and suffering — except during a brief experiment that began in 2022. That temporary law, created by Senate Bill 447, let survivors seek the same pain-and-suffering damages the injured person could have claimed, and it was explicitly limited to cases filed between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2025, according to LegiScan.
A bill to extend that window through 2030, Senate Bill 29 authored by state Sen. John Laird, died in an Assembly committee in September 2025, and California reverted on January 1, 2026, to the older rule stripping pre-death pain-and-suffering damages from survival actions, per the same LaCour Trial Lawyers account. Laird has said he plans to try again next year. The medical community opposed extending the law, by Laird's account, because it wanted damage limits to remain in place for medical malpractice lawsuits, and opposition was led by the California Medical Association and Californians Allied for Patient Protection. Opponents argued that removing the sunset would expand financial liability for healthcare providers, local governments and public transit entities, according to Advocate Magazine.
Jaime Huff, president and CEO of the Civil Justice Association of California, which advocates for the business community, said lifting damages restrictions would harm local governments and residents, according to the Chronicle's reporting. California's bar on pre-death pain-and-suffering recovery dates back to 1961 revisions to the state's survival claims and had made California one of only five states nationally to completely block such recovery before 2022, Advocate Magazine notes.
Only Four Cases Statewide Used the Temporary Law
Despite warnings about expanded liability, a required report the Judicial Council of California submitted to the Legislature in January 2025, covering SB 447 cases from January 2022 through July 2024, found four “impacted cases” statewide, the same Advocate Magazine report states. Advocate Magazine said the figure undermined opponents' claims that the law would open floodgates. Punitive damages remain available without requiring the victim to survive to verdict when wrongdoing was reckless or malicious, but those awards are uncommon in personal-injury cases, per the Chronicle.
One narrow path still exists after the sunset: California Welfare and Institutions Code Section 15657 allows pre-death pain-and-suffering damages to survive a victim's death if a lawsuit proves, by clear and convincing evidence, reckless, malicious or oppressive elder abuse or neglect, according to 1000Attorneys.com. Whether that exception applies to Thaler's case is not addressed in available reporting.
Thaler's Lawyer Moves to Beat the Clock
Thaler's attorney, Loren Schwartz, is now relying on California Code of Civil Procedure Section 36(a), a statute that lets a party over 70 who has a substantial interest in the action petition for mandatory trial preference when preference is necessary to prevent prejudice, according to FindLaw. Schwartz has asked a San Francisco Superior Court judge to schedule Thaler's trial within that 120-day window, with a hearing on the request set for November 10. If Thaler dies before her trial concludes, her family's potential recovery would be substantially limited, per the Chronicle's reporting.
San Francisco Paratransit, which the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency manages through private contractors, provides roughly 800,000 door-to-door van and taxi trips a year to about 14,000 registered seniors and residents with disabilities, according to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. Federal regulations under 49 CFR § 37.165 require paratransit operators to use a two-part securement system — a four-point tie-down for the wheelchair plus a separate lap and shoulder restraint belt for the passenger — before a vehicle moves, per Drive With Care.
The dispute over survival damages ultimately pits plaintiff attorneys, who argue the reverted rule incentivizes defendants to stall litigation until fragile victims die, against local government and business coalitions warning that unrestricted survival damages would impose unsustainable financial liabilities on public agencies and healthcare providers, Advocate Magazine reports. Pain-and-suffering damages often exceed 80% of damages in severe-injury cases — one reason the calendar has become so central to Thaler's case.
